•^^6* : 



,y 



-so*. 




• "V <F 



O > 




-r^O^ .• 



.' .^^°- 



C\. » 















• _<lP O • 



<^ ••••• V* 



c.^*^, 



V-* 



c-i^C. 



vV^ 



•'TTT* A 



:••**'** -'^m^.- .j''\. ■■mff.-.**'% •■ym.-\j'^\ -aK-' .** *< 






"^^/''TTT*- A 
























^ %.^^ 
J'^^^ 





















,0 'V 



>• >°-^*. V 









)' *<p,'-.^'y' ^o^-Tr,.»^o' 'V'*.^-.^^*' "o^-Tr,.»^o' '^<.^'-.^- 



'y ^^-n*. 



^. ,^4o. 



: j."-^*, 


















»■•- V.** :'M£:. \/ /ife-^ %.** .-J^", \./ .•:^'^'- ** *' 







«V "^ifi 













:. "-^^d* : 



• 1*°» c» 



V^^'V^"*-^' "q,. *.-rr,^' ^0 




>• .^°'nK 


































' %''^^-'y^^ V^^*/ \'^t«^-;/^ V^-^^V V^^-' 



• %.^^ 











.0^ .«"•«, V 



'bv 



' V -^ V %*^^%"' 'V.'^^.V*^^ c.-.^'.o ^-- - 













5^^o^^ 







:^oth Century Edition. 

EOPLE'S HISTORY 



OF THE 




UNITED STATES, 

By JOHN CLARK RIDPATH, LL.D. 

THE PROGRESS OF CIl^ILIZATION IN NORTH AMERICA, 
FROM THE COMING OF THE WHITE RACES TO THE 
LAST DECADE OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 



BEING A NARRATIVE OF THE VOYAGES OF THE 
NORSEMEN TO THE NEW WORLD ; THE DISCOVERIES 
BY THE SPANIARDS, ENGLISH, AND FRENCH; THE 
PLANTING OF SETTLEMENTS BY THE WHITES; THE 
DEVELOPMENT OF THE COLONIES; THE WAR FOR. 
INDEPENDENCE; THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE UNION; 
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE NATION; THE CIVIL 
WAR; THE RECENT EVENTS IN THE REPUBLIC; 
FORMING A GRAND PICTORIAL PANORAMA OF OUR 
COUNTRY'S HISTORY. 



PROFUSELY -LLUSTRATED WITH ORIGINAL 
SKETCHES, ENGRAVINGS AND PORTRAIT 



A ^ 





PHILADELPHIA: V^T 

HISTORICAL PUBLISHING COMPANY, 

Nos. 3941-43-45 and 47 Market St, 




Eln8 



Coi'VKiciiT, 1R95, nv II. vS. SMITH. 

(,AI,Iv KK'.irrs RliSKRVED.) 

2 J 40 



^*^, Tlu- illustrations in this work from orij^iiial drawings are protected by copyright 
and their reproduction in any form is unlawful, and notice is hereby given that persons 
guilty of infringing the cojjyright thereof will be prosecuted. 




^fl-^^-^r^*^-- 






...PREFACE. 




ISSUANCE of the People's History of the 
United States falls fittingly near the four 
hundredth anniversary of the discovery of our 
country. The author avails himself of the 
occasion to revise and enlarge the work, bring- 
ing the narrative down to the present day. He 
has expanded those parts which cover the last 
two decades of our history, so as to give to cur- 
rent events as much space as the limitations of 
the volume will permit. It is hoped that the 
reader may thus find not only an adequate 
account of the earlier epochs, but also a satisfactory narration of the recent— even 
the most recent— parts of our national development. 

Little apology should be made for the publication of a work of this kind 
Whatever may be the defects of composition and arrangement, the essential merits 
of the subject must prove to be not only the explanation, but in some measure the 
justification of the enterprise. The history of our country is a theme which can 
never be exhausted by repetition. It increases in interest with its diffusion • famil- 
iarity, m this case at least, instead of breeding contempt, adds rather an increasing 
charm to the story. 

I have attempted in this work to give within the moderate limits of a single 
volume a succinct account of the principal events in the history of the United 
States. Beginning with the eariiest voyages and discoveries, I have spoken 
of the first foothold and plantings of civilization on our continent I have 
attempted to narrate, not in minute details but in general outline of sufficient 
amplitude, the adventures and tentative movements by which the better parts of 
the New World were reclaimed and brought at length under the dominion of the 
English-speaking race. The same method has been pursued in the so-called 
Colonial period of our history, and through the epoch of the intercolonial wars. 

(19) 



20 PREFACE. 

Two reasons niaj' be assigned for dwelling with tolerable fullness upon this part 
of our career as a people. The first is the inherent interest which the earl}- ages 
of our history possess ; and the second is the dependency' of our larger development 
upon the Colonial planting. He who dwells with care on the matters presented 
in our age of discovery can hardly fail to find in the same such interest as the 
drama furnishes to the eager and curious mind. He who studies with attention 
the facts present in our Colonial epoch will discover in the same the fundamental 
conditions of the larger national life which has arisen therefrom. 

Tlie formative period of that life includes the great event by which our inde- 
pendence of the mother country was achieved, namely, the War of the Revolution. 
In this struggle of our heroic age the movements of the new American societies 
towards unity, freedom and greatness can be easily discerned. The virtues of 
that important period — its patriotism, singleness of purpose, high motives of con- 
duct and devotion to principle — must plainly appear to every thoughtful reader. 
The example of the patriot fathers may well furnish to their descendants the motives 
and inspiration requisite to right citizenship in the greatest of republics. 

In history not everything is accomplished at one stroke. Our War of Inde- 
pendence did not suffice for the nationality of the United States. That came 
afterwards, by trial stages, by attraction and repulsion, by the growth of many 
things and the decay of some, and finall}' b}- the ordeal of the greatest war of 
modern history. 

It was needed that a considerable period should elapse between the founding 
and the completion of our national structure. Room must be afforded for the 
abatement of old antagonisms and the death of hurtful prejudices. Opportunity 
must be given for the birth and develojjmcnt of new sentiments to which our 
fathers were strangers. Space must be had for the spread of this strong Anglo- 
American race, and for the obliteration of that localism with which it had been 
hampered in the beginning. 

Our war for the Union carries still in the memories of men the bruises of the 
battlefield. That struggle made for itself a great memor}^ in tlie world, and marked 
the limitation which the civilized life of man drew at last around some of the most 
grievous abuses of ancient times. It was in this furnace that African slavery 
perished ; out of it came new concepts of the rights of man and the blessings 
possible under a purified and enlarged democrac}'. 

Nor should we fail to reflect upon the great period which has now elapsed 
since the close of our civil conflict. IMore than one-fourth of our whole national 
career, measured from the foundation of the republic, lies this side of Appomattox ! 
During this period an increment of twenty-nine millions of souls, or forty per cent 
of the whole, has been added to our population. A continent has been reclaimed 



PREFACE. 



21 



and organized into great States ; the foundations have been laid with seeming 
security for the greatest nationality in the world. We have made a way for 
posterity, as our fathers made a way for us. 

It is fitting that all this should now come vividly to the recollection of the 
reader. In the following pages I will endeavor to recite the story of our country 
in a manner suitable to the close of a great century. It has been my aim to 
include all the essentials of the narrative, omitting only so much as may be spared 
without marring the outline of the whole. I do not flatter myself that the work 
has been perfectly done, but may claim to have spared no effort to make this one- 
volume .history of our country worthy of the theme and the great public, into 
whose hands I cordially deliver the result of my labor. 




Grccncastlc^ Ind , October. iSg^. 



1 




BOOK FIRST. 



EPOCH OF DISCOVERY AND PLANTING. 



CHAPTER I. 



PAGE 



REVELATION OF A NEW WORLD— Mysteries of the Globe— Strange theories of ancient geogra- 
phers — Probable passage from Europe to America in ancient times — Colonization of the northeast 

by Norsemen — Voyages of Leif Erickson — Reckless character of the Norse Sea-rovers — Other tradi- 
tions of early discovery — Dim conceptions of the earth's sphericity — The theories and experiences of 
Sir John Mandeville — Tyranny of church and feudalism — Civilization of the Peruvians and Mexi- 
cans — Horrible ceremonies of the Aztecs — Whence came the first settlers of America ? — Effects 
of commerce on civilization — The quest for gold 33-46 



CHAPTER II. 

THE DISCOVERY IN FACT— Passing of the "Dark Ages"— Fall of feudal institutions— Europe in 
the fifteenth century -The Spanish realm — Pointers toward discovery — Birth of Christopher Colum- 
bus — ^Theories of a spherical world — Training of the Genoese navigator — Sea adventures — West- 
ward ho ! to India — Dreaming with monks and scholastics — Begging in the courts of Europe — Before 
Ferdinand and Isabella— The fleet of Columbus— Sailing from Palos— Discovery of San Salvador — 
The Isles of the Antilles — Results of first voj-age — The hero's return to Spain — A second voyage — 
Further adventures, discoveries, and colonization — The hero again in Spain — Jealousies and persecu- 
tions — The third voyage— Departed glory — Carried home in chains — Fourth and last voyage- 
Death of Columbus — Voyages and discoveries of Amerigo Vespucci — Naming the " New World " 
Balboa discovers the Pacific Ocean — Adventures of Ponce de Leon — ^The *' Land of Flowers " — The 
"Fountain of Youth " — Cordova in Yucatan — Cortez in Mexico — Fall of the Aztecs — Magellan 
sails into the Pacific — First circumnavigation of the globe — Adventures of De Soto— Discovery of 
the Mississippi — A grave in the " Father of Waters " — Melendez founds St. Augustine — The 
Portuguese rivals in America 



47-66 



CHAPTER III. 

THE CABOTS AND THEIR FOLLOWERS— Immediate effects of the Columbian discovery— Discovery 
of North America bv Cabot — A second voyage — Discoveries of Sebastian Cabot — Land of the mid= 
night sun — The rights of first view — Illiberality of Henry VII. — Da Gama discovers a sea route to 
India— Interference of the Pope— England's divorce from Rome — Adventures of the English gold 
hunters — The piracies of Drake — Fatal voyage of Sir Humphre}' Gilbert — Sir Walter Raleigh in 
America — Founding of the first settlement — Conflict with the natives — Cruelty of the English — 
Massacre of the English at Roanoke— Birth of the first white child — Political dissensions in 
England — Gosnold's efforts to settle New England — Discoveries and colonization 67-S2 



CHAPTER IV. 

VOYAGES OF THE FRENCH AND DUTCH— The country of New France— Discoveries of Cartier— 
Kidnapping the King of the Hurons — .A colony- of desperate criminals — Roberval's search for a 
northwest passage — .\n asylum for persecuted Huguenots — A dreadful vengeance — First French 
settlement in America — The country of Acadia — Voyages of Henry Hudson S3-92 



24 CONTEXTS. 



CHAITER V. 



PAca 



ENGLISH COLONIZATION— Fortunate locations of the English— The London Company— Captain John 
Smith— Story of the Hnglish Puritans— Voyaxe of the Mayflower— Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers 
— Sorrowful famine sixmk-s — liarly settlements in New England — Roger Williams, the liberal religion- 
ist — His influence with the Indians — Rivalrj' between Protestants and Catholics — Sir George Calvert, 
Lord Baltimore - Settlement of Maryland — Colonization of North Carolina — Founding of Charleston 
— First settlement in New Jersey — William Penn — Policy of the Quakers — Penn in council with 
the Indians — The rapid building of Philadelphia — Savannah founded as an asylum for the poor . . 93-111 

CHAPTER VL 
VIRGINIA — Sftllemjiit of Jamestown — The courageous and adventurous character of Captain John Smith 
—Introduction of negro slavery — Importation of wives for the settlers — Revolt against Berkeley — 
Outrages of a profligate monarch — Bacon's rebellion — The first college in America 112-117 

CHAPTER VII. 

MASSACHUSETTS — Captain Miles Standish in New England — Treachery of the Indians — The bigotry 
and intolerance of the Puritans — Founding of a woman's republic — Setting up the printing press 
— Confederacy of the colonies — Persecution of the Quakers — The two regicides — King Philip's war — 
The siege of Brookfield— The fight at Swansea Church — A memorable battle — Rebellion against 
Andros— Dreadful episodes of the Indian wars — Destruction of .Schenectady — Appalling outrages 
committed by Indians— The terriljle experience of Mrs. Dustin in captivity— How she killed ten of 
her captors— 'Hie mas.s;icre at Ueerfield — The Salem witchcraft delusion— War of the Spanish 
Kticcession 11S-133 

CHAPTER VIII. 
NEW NETHERLAND— The Dutch Puritans— Conflict between the Swedes and Dutch— Invasion of 
New Sweden by Sluyvesant — The Dutch con(|uered by the English — Tyranny of James II. — Rebellion 
and piracy — Queen Anne's war — The negro riots •34~i39 

CHAPTER IX. 

MINOR COLONIES AND THE PEQUOD WAR— Burning of an Indian village— The captives sold into 
slavery— The Bible as the Constitution of the State — Theft of the charter — Resistance to Governor 
Fletcher — Founding of Yale College — An experimental theocracy in .America — The parliamentary 
patent — Prosperity attends the colony in Maryland — Wars between Catholics and Protestants — Dis- 
tractions and oppressions — Civil and religious rights in the Carolinas 140-147 



BOOK SECOND. 



EPOCH OF INDEPENDENCE. 



CHAPTER X. 
THE OLD THIRTEEN — I'irst attempts at colonial union — Beginning of .\mcrican Independence— Popu- 
lation of the colonial State-;— Persecution of the Moravians — Society in the States— Educational 
advantages — The log school house and the screw printing press — Means of travel and commu- 
nication 148-155 

CHAPTER XI. 
THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR— Conflicting territorial claims— French missionaries— Explorations 
of La Salle — His assassination — Jealousies between France and England — The issues of war — 
George Washington's mission— .\ remarkable journey— The founding of Pittsburgh— Beginning of 
the conflict- Washington attacks the French — .\n American union proposed — Battle before Du 
Quesne — Death of Braddock — A bloodv defeat — Kxile of the Acadians — The attack on Port Edward 
— Siege of William Henry- Capture of Louisburg — .Assault on Ticonderoga— Exploit of flajor Strabo 
— Capture of Niagara— Battle of Quebec— Death of Wolf and Montcalm— Pontiac's conspiracy— 
Eff'ect of the French and Indian war 156-177 



CONTENTS. 25 

CHAPTER XII. 

PAGE 
CAUSES OF THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE— A remarkable change of political feeling— Arbitrary 
claims of Great Britain — The foreshadowing of Rebellion — Political character of George III. — 
Specific complaints against England — -Taxation without representation — Excitement produced by the 
Stamp Act— The British ministry — The torch of rebellion lighted — The fiery speech of Patrick Henry 
— Assembling of the first colonial congress — Imposition of other oppressive duties — The Boston mas^ 
sacre— A violent resentment of the tea tax — Suspension of commercial intercourse with England . . 17S-18S 

CHAPTER XIII. 

FROM CONCORD TO QUEBEC— The ride of Paul Revere— First volley of the Revolution— Battle of 
Concord — The capture of Ticonderoga — Battle of Bunker Hill — The fires of patriotism blaze up on 
a thousand hills — Washington appointed to command the American army — Activity of the patriots — 
Assault on Montreal —Wounding of Arnold 189-195 

CHAPTER XIV. 

THE YEAR OF INDEPENDENCE— Attempt to drive Howe out of Boston— Anniversary of the Boston 
massacre — Evacuation of Boston — The conflict begins in other sections — Siege of Charleston — Dawn 
of independence — Principles of the declaration — Thomas Paine's patriotic services — England tries to 
conciliate the Americans — Battle of Long Island — Dark prospects following defeat — Discourage- 
ments of the American cause — Capture of the Hessians 196-205 

CHAPTER XV. 

PROGRESS OF THE REVOLUTION— Critical position of Washington— Washington outgenerals Corn- 
wallis — Battle of Princeton — A series of engagements — Tryon's invasion of Connecticut — Exploit 
of Benedict Arnold — Sj-mpathy of France — Secret help of the French people — The Marquis of 
Lafayette — The capture of General Prescott — Battle of Bennington — A remarkable stratagem — ■ 
Defeat and capture of Burgoyne — The captive is hospitably entertained — Battle of the Brandywine — 
The fight for Germantown — Attack on Chew's house — Sufferings at Valley Forge — Franklin 
negotiates an alliance with France — In hot pursuit of the British — Battle of Monmouth — Outrages 
of Guerillas and Indians— Heroic acts of the Bradys— The valorous deeds of the Wetzel brothers — 
Some marvelous adventures— Reverses to the American cause— Battle at Brier Creek— Unsuc- 
cessful attack on Savannah — Heroism of Paul Jones — Naval Battle between the Serapis and Bon 
Homme Richard 206-227 

CHAPTER XVI. 

WESTERN EPISODES OF THE WAR— Exploits of Daniel Boone- Colonization of Kentucky— Fort 
Boonesborough — Boone's captivity and escape — The new State of Kentucky — Boone's international 
fame — George Rogers Clarke and the Northwest Empire — British and French ambitions — Clarke cap- 
tures the British strongholds — The French alliances — Taking of Vincennes — Full occupancy of the 
northwest — Celebrated ordinance of 17S7 — Clarke's resting-place 228-235 

CHAPTER XVIL 

AMERICA WINS THE BATTLE— The siege of Charieston— Depredations of Tarieton— Bravery of 
Francis Marion— Death of Baron de Kalb— Battle of King's Mountain— The treason of Arnold- 
Capture and execution of Andre — Execution of mutineers — Career of Arnold as a British officer — 
A girl attempts to kill him— Battle of Cowpens— Defeat at Guilford Courthouse— Battle of Eutavir 
Springs — The intrepidity of Wayne — Campaign against Cornwallis — Siege of Yorktown — Surrender 
of Cornwallis — Demonstrations of joy — England acknowledges American independence — Evacua- 
tion of New York — Concluding scenes of the war — Washington's farewell — His address before 
Congress 236-252 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

THE CONFEDERATION— Powers of Congress— Trials that confronted the new government— The war 

debt — Territory of the great west — Adoption of the dollar and its decimal 253-257 



36 COXTKXTS. 

BOOK THIRD. 



EPOCH OF NATIONALITY. 



CHAPTER XIX. 



PAGB 



THE NEW CONSTITUTION — I"ailure of the Articles of Confederation — The constitutional convention — 
The question at issue — Birth of political parties in America— Patriotic suspicious — Obstinacy of 
certain States — A digest of the coiistitiilion — A criticism of the constitution — Criticism of the con- 
gressional sjstem — Election of the first President • . . . 258-264 

CHAPTER XX. 

FIRST THREE ADMINISTRATIONS— The inauguration of Washington— Embarrassments of the gov- 
ernment-Antagonism between Jefferson and Hamilton— First acts of Congress — (Questions of 
etiquette — The burden of a national debt — The financial genius of Hamilton — A war with the 
Miami Indians — Disastrous defeat of General Harmer — I'atal rout of General St. Clair — Indignation of 
Washington— Daniel Boone on the dark and bloody ground — Troubles of the second administra- 
tion — Political dissensions in the caljinct — The whisky insurrection — Wayne's victory over the 
Indians— Washington assailed by incendiary slanders — The Algerine Pirates— Washington's fare- 
well address — ^John Adams, tile second President — War with I'rance — Naval duel between the Con- 
stellation and Insurgent — Napoleon's friendship for America — Death of Washington — Peace and 
prosperity— The sedition and alien law — Character of Jefferson — The Louisiana purchase — Results 
accomplished by the Jefferson administration — War with the Barbary States — Duel between Burr 
and Hamilton — Burr's scheme to make himself a dictator — America suffers between cross-fires— Right 
of search and seizure — Robert pulton's steamboat 265-292 

CHAPTER XXI. 

SECOND WAR WITH ENQLAND—James Madison — Free trade and sailors' rights— Harrison's victory 
over Tecumtha — Conjurations of a prophet — First gun of the war of 1S12 — Shameful .surrender of 
Hull — Ivngagenient between the Constitution and Guerriere — Capture of the Frolic — Gtlier battles 
on the high seas— Expedition against Canada — Defeat and massacre at Raisin River— Gallant 
defence of Fort Stephenson — Perry's victory on Lake F^rie — Defeat and death of Tecumtha — ^Jack- 
son's campaigns against the Indians — A mutinous spirit quelled — Capture of Toronto— Battle 
between the Chesapeake and Shannon — Bloody Lundy's Lane — Defeat of the British— Capture 
and burning of Washington — Hombardtnent of F'ort McHenry — Political dissensions- Battle Of 
New Orleans — Engagements on the seas — A treaty of peace — Effects of the war — Founding of a 
negro free state 293-308 

CHAPTER XXII. 

MIDDLE AGES OF THE UNITED STATES— Administration of James Monroe— Trouble with Hayti 
— Revival of Buccaneering — Ctmtention between Democrats and I'cderalists— Suppression of the 
Seminoles — The intrepidity of Jackson — Money crisis of 1S19 — The Missouri compromise — Destruc- 
tion of the West Indian Pirates — The Monroe doctrine — Visit of Lafayette — Career of J. Q. Adams — 
Difficulties over Indian Titles — Death of Jefferson and Adams — The Masonic excitement — The tariff 
question — Adoption of the system of protection — Other issues before the nation— Jackson the 
military hero — His election to the Presidency — The Jackson administration — Threatened .secession of 
South Carolina— War with the Chcrokees and Creeks— A bloody massacre— Bank of the United 
States — .\ financial panic — President Jackson's farewell — F'inancial Crisis of 1837 — Independent 
treasury bill — Complications with Canada — FHection of Harrison — Ilisadniinistr.ition — His death, and 
accession of Tyler — The Webster-.\shburton treaty — Dedication of Bunker Hill monument— The 
anti-rent ])arty — Rise of the Monuons — Killing of the Smiths 309~334 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

AVAR WITH HEXICO-The Republic of Texas— Remember the Alamo ! -Annexation of Texas— The 
campaign of 1S44 — First use of the telegraph — Questions which led to the war with Mexico — 
Beginning of hostilities — Death of Major Ringgold — Preparations for the struggle — Storming of 



CONTENTS. 27 

PAGE 

rionterey — Conquest of California — Bombardment of Vera Cruz — March of the victorious army — 
Battle of Cerro Gordo— Storming the heights of Chapultepec — A campaign of unexampled brilliancy 
— Attack on the American hospital — Closing strokes of the war — Settlement of the boundary dispute 
— Discovery of gold in California — Excitement caused b^- Sutter's find — Birth of the free-soil party 
— The slavery question again agitated— Henry Clay's omnibus bill 335-352 

CHAPTER XXIV. 
THE FILLHORE ADMINISTRATION— Compromise acts of iS5o-Effect on the Whig Party— Filibus= 

ters in Cuba — The Newfoundland fisherj- dispute — Kossuth, the Hungarian patriot — North Pole 
expeditions — Everett's reph- to England — Election of Pierce — Pacific railway project — Perry's expedi- 
tion to Japan — Walker's raid in Nicaragua — An extradition dispute — Question of annexing Cuba — 
Efforts to extend slavery — Border warfare— Bitter campaign of 1S56 — The Dred Scott decision — 
Johnston's campaign against the Mormons — Laying of the ocean cable 353-362 



BOOK FOURTH. 



EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

ANTECEDENTS OF THE CIVIL WAR— The great tragedy of American history— The capture and 
execution of John Brown — The convention of 1S60 — Anger of the South over Lincoln's election — The 
Secession of South Carolina — Disunion spreads apace — Formation of a new Confederacy — Seizure 
of public property in the South — Close of Buchanan's administration — Abraham Lincoln — Siege and 
capture of Fort Sumter — First blood shed in the great civil war — The question of difference between 
South and North — Construction of the Constitution by disunionists — Slave ownership and what 
it involved — The tariff chosen between agriculture and manufacture — Effects of sectional 
literature 363-377 

CHAPTER XXVL 

BEQINNINQ OF THE CONFLICT— The uprising in the North— Events in the Shenandoah Valley- 
First battle of Bull Run — Defeat of the LTnion forces — Operations in the West — Death of General 
L)'on — Battle of Belmont — The defences of Washington — Seizure of Mason and Slidell — Capture of 
Forts Henr)' and Donelson — The battle shock at Shiloh — Evacuation of Columbus — Duel between 
the Merrimac and Monitor — Capture of New Orleans — Battles of luka and Corinth — Defeat of Sher= 
man — Battle of Murfreesborough — On to Richmond — Appointment of General Lee as commander 
of the Confederate Army — Desperate fighting before Richmond — Terrible loss of life — Battle of 
Antietam — .'Vnother advance on Richmond — Battle of Fredericksburg 378-398 

CHAPTER XXVII. 
DECLINE AND OVERTHROW OF THE CONFEDERACY— Additional calls for troops— Emancipa- 
tion proclamation — Operations for the reduction of Vicksburg — The Confederates driven inside their 
defences— Surrender of Vicksburg— Cavalry raids— Battle of Chickamauga— Battles of Lookout 
Mountain and Missionary Ridge — Invasion of Missouri — Quantrell's raid — Attack on Charleston — 
Death of Stonewall Jackson — Battle of Chancellorsville — Invasion of Pennsylvania — Battle of 
Gettysburg — Riots following the Conscription Act — Raids of General Forrest — Disastrous results of 
the Red River expedition— Sherman's march to the sea — Defeat of Hood and capture of Atlanta — 
The trail of destruction — Capture of Charleston — Closing battles of the war — Carolina raids — Farragut 
before Mobile — Bombardment of Fort Fisher— Damages inflicted by the Privateers — Sinking of the 
Alabama by the Kearsarge — Battles of the Wilderness — Before the outposts of Richmond — Battle of 
Winchester — Capture of Petersburg — Retreat of Lee's army — Surrender of Lee — Capture of Davis — 
Closing events of the war — Financial measures to meet the expenses of the war — The National Bank 
Act — Patriotic utterances of Lincoln — His second inauguration — Assassination of Lincoln — Univer- 
sal grief of the nation — Accession of* Andrew Johnson — The Amnesty proclamatiou — Execution of 
Maximilian — Laying of the Atlantic Cable — Purchase of Alaska 399-449 



2S CONTEXTS. 

CHAPTER XXVIII. 

PAGE 
PERIOD OF RECONSTRUCTION— Setting up of provisional governments — A second .'.nincsty procla- 
mation — National peace convention — Amendments to the Constitution — Impeachment trial of 
Johnson — I-;iection of Grant — Hlack Friday — Settlement of the Alabama claims — The burning of 
Chicago — Trouliles arising from carix.-t-l)ag rule — Defeat of Greeley — The riodoc Indian war — The 
Credit Mobilier scandal — Transcontinental railway lines — Death's harvest amonjf the great — The 
Centennial Exposition — The Sioux war — The Presidential election of 1.S76 — The Joint High Com- 
mission—Happy passage of a great crisis 441-457 

CHAPTER XXIX. 

PERIOD OF RECOVERY— .Administration of President Hayes— The great railroad strike— War with 
the Niz Perces Indians — Demonetization of silver — Tlie Resumption .\ct — The yellow fever plague — The 
fishery dispute — Life-saving service — Specie resumption — The campaign of iSSo — Refunding the 
National debt— Grant's tour around the world -The decennial census— Life of Garfield— Civil 
service reform — .\ disruption in the party— Stalwarts and half-bree<ls — Assassination of Garfield — 
Trial and execution of Guiteau — Succession of .\rthur — The Star Route Scandal — Great inventions 
— The telephone, phonograph and electric light — Edison, the wizard — Great Teats of engineering — 
The tariff question— Both sides presented — The prohibitory tariff— President! d campaign of 1.SS4 — 
Dedication of the Washington monument 458-483 

CHAPTER XXX. 

THE DEMOCRATIC RESTORATION— Election of Cleveland -Vain effort to introduce civil service 
reform — Memorial literature of the war — Death of Gen. Grant — Demise of other eminent men — 
The United States Supreme Court — Roscoe Conkling — Organization of latior — Anarchy in Chicago — 
The Charleston earthquake— The pension list— The Inter-State Commerce Bill— Issues of the cam- 
paign of 1888 — Election of Benjamin IIarri.son 484-499 

CHAPTER XXXI. 

HARRISON'S ADHINISTRATION -Epochs in our national life— Celebrating the institution of the 
Republic— Grand civic display — Threatened war between Germany and .America — The Johnstown 
flood— Assembling of the Pan-Am.^rican Congres,s — Renewal of the tariff dispute — The McKinley 
Bill — Excitement over the ruling.-; of Speaker Reed — The silver question — Eleventh census — New 
Orleans riot — Threatened war with Chili — A serious situation— MunUrous a.ssault on the crew of the 
Baltimore— Chili apologizes- The tariff in the courts— The campaign of 1892— Platforms, candi- 
dates and is.sues — XL,- strikes of l'*92 — Second election of Clevelai;.! — The World's Columbian 
Exposition — Organizati..i . of the Exposition — Celebrating the di.scovery in other countries— Site, 
plan, size and cost of .ilxpo.sition buildings — Dedicatoi-j- ceremonies at New York — Unveiling the 
Columbus Monument — Dedicatory ceremo'-.ies at Chicago — The mammoth parade — Ceremonies at 
the Fair grounds 500-540 

CHAPTER XXXII. 

CLEVELAND'S SECOND ADMINISTRATION-World's Columbian Expo^>tl0^— The Ic.iding 
exhibits— The Viking ship— I'leet of Columbus — The Krupp cannon — Fine Art.- display— The last 
of the White City— The Cherokee Strip— Silver and tariff legislation— The Wi. son bill— Industrial 
and business depression — The Hawaiian complications — The Behriug Sea probieui — The strikes of 1894 
— Parkhurst and reform— The illustrious dead — The completed story 541-558 




LMIS5WFIO 




PAGE 

Emblems of discovery and planting 33 

Arabic Conception of sea-hunting monsters ... 35 

Norsemen on the coast of America 36 

Killing of Thorwald 37 

A Norse sea-king 38 

Map of Vinland 40 

Aztecs sacrificing to the sun 43 

Aztec calendar stone 44 

A Phoenician ship 46 

Emblems of Columbian discovery 47 

Columbus, from a painting ordered by Isabella . . 48 

Columbus, after Capriola, Rome, 1596 48 

Dream visions of inspiration 49 

Archbishop Mendoza introducing Columbus to 

Ferdinand 50 

Reception of Columbus by Ferdinand and Isabella 51 

The fleet of Columbus 52 

Landing on the shores of San Salvador 53 

Landing at St. Nicholas Harbor, Hayti ... 54 

Columbus knocking down an insolent mutineer . 55 

Columbus sent to Spain in chains 56 

Death of Columbus 57 

Columbus Monument, near Palos 58 

Balboa claiming possession of the Pacific .... 59 

Florida Indians attacking Spaniards 60 

Hernando Cortez 61 

Death of Montezuma 62 

Death of Magellan 63 

De Soto landing his forces in Florida ...... 64 

Route of De Soto's expedition 65 

John Cabot landing on the shores of Labrador . . 68 

The fleet of Frobisher 71 

Crowning of Drake as king of California .... 73 

Queen Elizabeth 74 

Ruins of the English settlement at Roanoke . . 76 

Massacre of settlers at Roanoke 77 

Baptism of Virginia Dare, first white child born 

in America . . 79 

Capture of English supply ships by Spanish 

cruisers 80 

Cartier on the summit of Mont Real (Montreal) . 84 

Cartier enticing the king of the Hurons 85 

Roberval's search for a northwest passage .... 86 
De Gourges avenging the murder of the Hugue- 
nots ... 88 

Dining room of French colonists at Port Royal . 90 

The Half-Moon on the Hudson 92 

Captain John Smith 94 

Departure of the Puritans 96 

Signing the compact 97 

Dealing out the five kernels of corn 98 

Map of early New England settlements 99 

Roger Williams at the council of Canonicus . . . 100 

Roger Williams among the Indians 102 

Sir George Calvert (Lord Baltimore) 103 

Leonard Calvert planting the first Maryland 

colony 104 



PAGE 

I\Iap of the Atlantic coast settlements 106 

Map of the Jersey settlements 107 

William Penn loS 

Map of Philadelphia and vicinity no 

James Oglethorpe in 

Map of the Chesapeake 113 

Importation of wives for the Jamestown settlers . 1 14 

The war-ship G';/z>/£'(7 enforcing submission ... 115 

Samoset welcoming the English ng 

Treaty between Governor Carver and Massasoit . 1 19 

A scold gagged 121 

The first printing press brought to America ... 122 

First church erected in Hartford, Conn 123 

First scene of King Philip's war 123 

Second scene of King Philip's war 124 

Third scene of King Philip's war 124 

The fight at Swansea church 125 

Indian attack on Brookfield 126 

Destruction of Schenectady 127 

Mr. Dustiu covering the retreat of his children . 129 

Mrs. Dustin killing her captors 130 

The old witch house, Salem, Mass 131 

Trial of a witch at Salem 132 

Peter Stuyvesant 135 

Queen Anne 139 

Scene of the Pequod war . .... .... 140 

Captain Mason firing the Indian village 141 

The younger Winthrop 141 

The voice of usurpation drowned by drum-beats . 142 

Trainiug-da)' in the olden time 145 

Persecution of the Mora%-ians 150 

A primitive New England school 152 

Printing the Boston News-Letter 153 

Fathers Joliet and Marquette descending the Mis- 
sissippi . . • 157 

La Salle and companions on the Mississippi . . . 158 

Assassination of La Salle 159 

Chief Half-King treating with the English ... 160 

Washington fired at by a savage 161 

Washington attacking the French encampment . 162 

Battle-ground of French and Indian wars, 1755 . 164 

Scene of Braddock's defeat, 1755 165 

Death of Braddock 166 

Isthmus of Acadia 167 

Exile of Acadians from Grand Prd 167 

Siege of Fort William Henry . . . • 169 

Siege of Louisburg, 1745 170 

Ruins of Ticonderoga 170 

Wonderful exploit of Major Strabo 171 

Bloody Run 172 

General James Wolfe 173 

Vicinity of Quebec, 1759 173 

The death of General Wolfe 175 

Ojibway maiden exposing the conspiracy .... 176 

King George III ' 181 

Benjamin Franklin 183 

Procession in New York in opposition to Stamp Act 1S4 



(29) 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



PAGE 

Patrick Henry addressing the Virginia Assembly . 185 

Samuel Adams . . . . ' 188 

I'aul Revere spreading the alarm 190 

General Nathaniel Greene 190 

Kthan Allen demanding the surrender of Ticon- 

deroga . ■ 191 

Vicinity of Lake George igi 

Plan of battle of lUinkcr Hill 182 

Closing charge at Hunker Hill 193 

(ieorge Washington 194 

Attack on Quebec and death of Montgomery . . 195 

Siege of Boston, 1776 196 

Siege of Charleston 197 

The attack on Fort Moultrie 19S 

Thomas Jefferson 199 

Adoption of the Declaration of Independence . 200 

Plan of the battle of Long Islanil 202 

Scene of operations about New York, 1776 . . . 203 

Plan of battles of Princeton and Trenton .... 205 

The death of General Mercer 207 

Exploit of Benedict Arnold 208 

Place of the barricade 209 

Marquis de Lafayette 210 

Capture of General Prescott 211 

Bennington battle-ground 212 

The alarm at I'ort Schuyler 212 

Burgoyne's camp on the Hudson 213 

Scene of Burgoyne's Invasion 213 

Surrender of Burgoyiie 214 

Gates' headquarters and scene of Banquet . . . 215 

Battle of Germantown — The Chew liou.se. . . . 216 

Encarapnicnt at Valley Forge 217 

In camp at Valley Forge 218 

The American cavalry charge at Monmouth . . . 220 

The death of James Brady 222 

The escape of I.^wis Wetzel 223 

Defeat of the Americans at Brier Creek 225 

Paul Jones boarding the Serapis 226 

Washington's headquarters at Morristown . . . 227 

Daniel Boone 229 

Capture of Boone 230 

E-scape of Boone 231 

Scene of operations in the South, 1780-S1 .... 237 

Rendezvous of Marion and his men 2jS 

Scene of Arnold's treason, 1780 239 

Capture of M.ijor Andri 240 

Sergeant Champe's departure 242 

A patriot girl's attempt on Arnold's life 243 

Charge of the Americans under Greene 246 

Siege of Yorktown ... 247 

.■\mcricans c.-xpturing a redoubt at Yorktown . . . 248 

Surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown 248 

Washington bidding farewell to his generals . . 251 
American generals of the Revolution and war of 

1S12 257 

John .\dams 264 

Washington taking the oath as President .... 266 

Washington and his Cabinet 267 

General Harnier defeated by the Indians .... 269 

Surprise of General St. Clair 270 

Washington receiving the report of St. Clair's 

defeat 271 

Capture of the whisky tax collectois 274 

Eng igement of the Constellation and Insurgent . 27.8 

Nanoleon and Marie Louise at Fontaineblcau . . 279 

Jefferson goini; to the inauguration 2.83 

Chief Justice Marshall 2S6 

Duel between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron 

Burr 2S8 

Robert Fulton 291 

James Madison 293 

Elkswatawa trying to conjure General Harrison . 294 



PAGE 

Scene of Hull's campaign, 1S12 296 

Capture of tlie Frolic 297 

Fort Meigs 29)5 

Commodore Perry leaving his flag-ship for the 

Niagara 299 

Scene of the Creek war. 1813-14 300 

Defeat of Indians at Tallapoosa 300 

Engagement between the Chesapeake and Shan- 
non 302 

.\ttack on Oswego 303 

Battle of New Orleans 307 

Confirming a treaty between whites and Indians . 310 

Death of General Thompson 324 

View of Salt Lake City 333 

Meeting place of the first Texan Congress . . . 336 

Capture of a Mexican battery by Captain May . 339 

Pathetic incident at battle of Monterey . . . . 341 
Fremont hoisting the .\mericau flag on highest 

peak of the Rocky Mountains 342 

Escape of Santa .\nna at Cerro Gordo 344 

Storming of Chapultepec 346 

San Francisco in 1849 34S 

Sutter's mill — site of first gold discovery in Cali- 
fornia 349 

John C. Calhoun . . 352 

Henry Clay . 352 

Daniel Webster 352 

Abraham Lincoln 364 

Warfare on the Kansas border 365 

John Brown's fort and Haq>er's Ferrj- 366 

John Brown besieged at Harper's Ferry 367 

Alexander H. Stephens 36S 

Jefferson Davis 368 

Abraham Lincoln 369 

Lincoln's early home in Illinois 370 

President Lincoln's first Cabinet 371 

Attack on Fort Sumter from Morris Island . . . 372 

Flag and cockades of South Carolina 373 

Mas.s;ichu.setts troops attacked in the streets of 

Baltimore 374 

Horrors of the Fugitive Slave Law 375 

United States frigate St. Lawrence and Confeder- 
ate privateer Petrel in Charleston Harbor, 

August 4, 1S61 376 

General P. G. T. Beauregard 379 

Battlcof null Run 380 

Death of General Lyon at Wilson's Creek . . . 381 

A Monitor and blockade-runner 382 

Surrender of Fort Donelson 384 

Battle of Shiloh 3S5 

Fight between the Monitor and Merrimac .... 387 

Heroism of Colonel Rogers 389 

General Auger's brigade pas,sing through Manas- 
sas to reinforce General Banks 390 

General T. J. (.Stonewall) Jackson 391 

Map of McClellan's lines and operations of the 

Potomac army 392 

Part of Maryland raided by Confederates .... 393 

Battle of Malvern Hill — Lee's attack 394 

General Joseph Hooker 395 

Storming the bridge at .\ntietam 396 

Distinguished I'nion generals 398 

General Wm. T. Sherman 400 

.\ railroad battcPi' of the raiders 402 

\ charge at Missionary Ridge 403 

Attack on Charleston 404 

Lee and Jackson planning the battle of Chancel- 

lorsville . . 405 

Stonewall Jackson before the battle 406 

Battle of Chancellorsville 407 

Seat of war from Harper's Ferry to Suffolk, Va. . 408 

Battle of Gettysburg, July 1-3, 1863 409 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



31 



PAGE 

Repulsing a cliarge at Gettj-sburg 410 

Pickett's charge at Gettysburg 411 

Forrest leading his rough riders 413 

Map of Daltou and vicinity 414 

Death of General Polk 415 

Map of Atlanta and vicinity 416 

Sherman's march to the sea, 1864 417 

General Joseph E. Johnston 418 

Admiral David G. Farragut 419 

Naval battle in Mobile Bay 420 

Sinking of the Alabama by the Kearsarge . . . 422 

Distinguished Confederate generals 424 

From Richmond to Appomattox, 1865 425 

General Philip H. Sheridan 426 

Sheridan's ride 427 

Lee's army on the retreat 42S 

General Lee signing the conditions of surrender . 430 

Last meeting of the Confederate Cabinet .... 431 

Assassination of President Lincoln 434 

Closing scenes of the war — Grand military parade 

in Washington 436 

Execution of Maximilian 438 

Triumph of faith and genius 439 

The Great Eastern laying the Atlantic cable . . 440 

U. S. Grant 443 

General Grant's home in Galena, i85o 444 

Horace Greeley 448 

Charles Sumner 450 

Joseph B. Hawley 451 

Alfred T. Goshorn 452 

President Grant opening the Centennial Exposition 453 

Heroic death of Custer 455 

Thomas A. Hendricks 456 

James A. Garfield 462 

General Winfield S. Hancock 463 

From canal boy to the Presidencj' 465 

James G. Blaine 466 

Roscoe Conkling 467 

Assassination of President Garfield 468 

Chester A. Arthur 469 

New inventions contrasted with old 471 

New inventions contrasted with old 475 

The Brooklyn bridge 476 



PAGE 

John A. Logan 4S2 

Grover Cleveland 485 

Funeral train bearing General Grant's body . . . 4S6 

Birthplace and tomb of General Grant 487 

Grant's tomb in Riverside Park 488 

Henry Ward Beecher 490 

Homes and birthplaces of great Americans , . . 493 

Benjamin Harrison ... 501 

Tamassese, the usurping king of Samoa .... 507 

Drilling native soldiers ... 507 

Malietoa, the deposed king of Samoa ■ 507 

Apia, capital of Samoa 507 

City and harbor of Valparaiso 516 

Decoration Day — Tribute of Peace 518 

William McKinley 519 

Whitelaw Reid 520 

David B. Hill 521 

General John Bidwell 521 

General James B. Weaver 522 

Importation of contract labor into the United 

States. . . 523 

Interior of Manufactures Building 525 

Columbian Monument, Madrid 526 

Monument to Columbus, in Genoa 527 

Interior of the Mines Building 529 

Diagram showing areas of International Exposi- 
tions .• - -. 531 

Fireworks, BrookUn bridge, in honor of Inter- 
national naval parade 533 

Columbus Monument, New York City 536 

General Nelson A. Miles 537 

The Santa Maria, Pinta and Nina 539 

President Cleveland and his Cabinet 543 

Fleet of Columbus 545 

William L. Wilson 551 

Senator A. P. Gorman 552 

General J. vS. Coxey 552 

Rev. Charles A. Parkhurst 553 

The royal palace, Hawaii 554 

Hawaiian feast 555 

Dr. James McCosh 556 

General Henry W. Slocum 556 

Frederick Douglass 557 



BOOK FIRST. 



Epoch of Discovery and Planting. 



CHAPTER I. 
nEVELATION OF THE NEW WORLD. 



^^^■^ 







Jaijdiijj oj-t^e ^orjonuiv 



the men of the ancient world the 
character of the globe — its fonn, its 
fashion — was a mystery. They knew 
it not. The greatest minds of antiquity 
stood puzzled and dumb before the enigma. 
It is impossible for the man of the present 
day, by force of imagination, to put him- 
self in the place of the man of antiquity 
*nd consider the earth, the sun and the stars as he considered them. With the lapse of 
time, the increase of knowledge and the diffusion of light, the myster)' has cleared away, 
the unknown has become the known. The sky is no longer a curtain and the ocean no 
longer a boundless deep. The earth is no longer an impossible plain held up from below 
by mythical monsters and carried forward through an impossible panorama of seasons and 
3 ill) 



34 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

vicissitudes. All things have been resolved from doubt into certainty. The fogs of feai 
and superstition have been tossed afar by the salubrious wind, and though man does not 
know all, he does know much of the sphere which he inhabits, the nature of things and 
the svstem of universal nature. 

The revelation of the form and bigness of the earth was long retarded. It seemed that 
the darkness of the ancient and mediaeval night would never give place to day. Every 
form of ignorance and every spirit of superstition, all the misconceptions of the past and 
all the folly and fears of the present stood in the way and brandished weapons and torches 
like goblins of the night. Nothing less than the sublime law of progress, under the reign 
of which the old and hurtful darkness gives place at length to the new and beautiful dawn, 
could have availed to bring in a newer and truer concept of the world and to fix it as an 
unchangeable scientific belief in the minds of men. 

It were an impossible task to discover the origin of the new opinions respecting the 
form and figure of the earth. It appears that the old belief was never satisfying to the 
great minds of antiquity. In the writings of Aristotle we already catch glimpses of a con- 
jecture that the earth is a sphere and not a plain. The popular mytholog>' did not suffice 
with men like Socrates and his companions and followers, and they reached out vaguely 
to frame each for himself a concept of the worid on which he enacted the brief drama 

of his life. 

But scientific views of nature were soon lost in the decadence and darkness that 
followed the Classical ages. The decline of the Roman Empire was coincident with a 
decline in the human mind. The triumph of the Goths was not only the triumph of 
physical violence over the remains of order and civilization, but it was also the victory 
of ancient barbaric thought over the science, the philosophy and learning which had 
flourished for a season under the auspices of Greek and Roman scholars. The Christian 
church at length fell into league with the barbarians, and though ever straggling with 
their bratalities and looking backward with yearning and regret to the vast and orderiy 
society which had flourished under the Empire, she herself became in a measure as barbar- 
ous as the world around her. 

STRANGE THEORIES OF ANCIENT GEOGRAPHERS. 

Then it was that the Ptolemaic system of the uni\erse was accepted, believed and 
taught not only as a part of science, but as one of the fundamentals of religious trath. 
The earth was the centre of all things. Around it circled the sun and moon and stars. 
On all sides the oceans washed the unknown shores. Goblins hovered over the deep. 
Nature was a myster,- which it was sacrilege to investigate, and the worid was a problem 
which none might solve. 

Such was the condition of the human mind with regard to our planet during the 
Middle Ages. Meanwhile nature herself began to be revealed without the purpose and 
conceit of man. The Western Hemisphere is no doubt as old and perhaps older than the 
Eastern. It is probable that the two .\mericas came out of the primeval waters at an 
eariier period in geological histon- than did the western parts of Europe. It is also possible 
(that the aboriginal' races of our worid are ethnically considered a more ancient people than 
those of the European continent. There are evidences that a great land bridge fonneriy 
joined Greenland with Labrador, making easy the pa.ssage for human beings from the one 
country to the other. In this way it is possible that there ma\- have been at a very eariy 
period a community of inhabitants between the northern parts of Europe and the sub-polar 
regions of North America- 








ARABIC CONCEPTION OF THE MONSTERS THAT HAUNTED THE SEA. 



(35) 



36 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



Meanwhile there can be little doubt that the Polynesians of Southeastern Asia began 
to make tlieir way islandwise across the Pacific, and at length reached the western shores 
of South America. Again, we may trace with tolerable certainty the incoming of Asiatic 
Mongoloid tribes by way of Bering Strait into the northwestenimost parts of our continent. 
From these sources it is easy to conceive of an aboriginal distribution of peoples in the 
so-called New World at a period as early as those events which constitute the subject-matter 
of ancient history for Europe and Western Asia. 

If we confine our attention to those westward movements of mankind by which our 
hemisphere became known to civilization we should fix our attention upon the Norse peoples 
of the tenth and eleventh centuries. Here we touch the remotest border of the epoch of 
discover)'. It is not likely that any record made by man will ever be discovered in which 
the evidences of earlier visitation to our shores are recorded than in the Sagas of the Scan- 
dinavians. Nor are we at libertv to dismiss as mvthical the now well-determined mov-e- 




NORSEMEN ON THE COAST OK AMERICA. 

ments of the Norsemen by which the northeastern parts of the present United States were 
seen and visited and colonized as much as five hundred years before the epoch of Columbus. 
Since 1838, when through the efforts of Rafn and the Royal Society of Copenhagen the 
Scandinavian Sagas have been submitted to the critical judgment of Europe, all ground of 
doubt has been removed relative to the Norse discoveries in the west at the close of the 
tenth and the beginning of the eleventh century. 

I It is now conceded that Labrador, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and the northeastern 
parts of the United States were visited and to a limited extent colonized before the Norman 
conquest of England. While old Sweyn was flaunting the Danish raven in the face of 
Ethelred the Unready ; while Robert I., son of Hugh Capet, was on the throne of France ; 
while the Sa.xon Otho III. swayed the destinies of Germany ; and while the Caliphate of 
Bagdad was still flourishing under the Abbassides, men of the Ar>'an race were establish- 



EPOCH OF DISCOVERY AND PLANTING. 37 

ing a feeble communication between the New World and Iceland. It is appropriate, first 
of all, to give a brief account of the voyages and explorations made by the Norse adven- 
turers along the coast of America. ' 

THE NORSE DrSCOVERERS OF AMERICA. 

From the Sagas above referred to we learn that the Western continent was first reached 
by Europeans in the year A. D. 986. In that year a Norse sea-captain by the name of 
Herjulfson, sailing from Iceland to Greenland, was caught by a storm, turned somewhat 
from his course and carried to I/abrador or Newfoundland. Several times the unknown 



KII.I,ING OF THORWALD. 

shore was seen, but no landing was made or attempted. The coast was low and bleak. 
Tall forests abounded. The outline was so different from the well-known cliffs of Greenland 
as to make it certain that another shore hitherto unknown had been seen in the West. 

On returning to Greenland, Herjulfson and his companions spread abroad the story of the 
new country which they had found, but whether it were continent or island none might 
know. Fourteen years later what may be called the actual discovery of America was made 
by Prince Leif, son of Eric the Red, usually called L,eif Erickson. This noted Icelandic 
captain, resolving to know the truth about the country which Herjulfson had seen, sailed 
westward from Greenland, and in the spring of the year looi reached Labrador. Impelled 



3S 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



by a spirit of adventure, he went ashore with his companions and explored the coast for 
considerable distances. The country was found at that season to be milder and more 
attractive than Greenland, and Leif was in no haste to return. He coasted far southward, 
as far as Massachusetts, where his daring conipain- remained for more tlian a year. Rhode 
Island was also visited, and it is alleged that the hardy adventurers found their way into New 
York harbor. 

What has once been done, whether by accident or design, may easily be repeated. 
After the discovery of the new couiitr\- it was a commonplace task for other navigators to 
follow the course taken by Herjulfson and Prince Leif In the years that followed the dis- 
coveries of the latter several companies of Norsemen visited the shores of America. Thor- 
wald, brother of Prince Leif, made a voyage to Maine and INI assachu setts in the year 1002, 
and the captain is said to have been killed in a conflict with the natives at Fall River in the 
latter State. Then another brother, named Thorstein, 
came with his band in the year 1005, and two years 
afterwards Thorfinn Karlsefne, the most distinguished 
mariner of his day, arrived with a crew of a hundred 
and fifty men and made explorations along the coast 
of Massachusetts, Rhode Island and perhaps as far 
south as the capes of Virginia. Other companies 
of Icelanders and Norwegians visited the countries 
farther north and planted colonies in Newfoundland 
and Nova Scotia. 

Little, however, was known or imagined by these 
rude adventurers of the character and exteuc of the 
country which they had discovered. They supposed, 
indeed, that it was only a portion of Western Green- 
land which bending to the north around an arm of 
the ocean had reappeared in the west. The Norse 
American settlements were feeble and soon broken 
up. Commerce was an impossibility in a couutr\' 





¥■ 



A NORSE SEA KING. 



where there were only a few wretched savages with 
no disposition to buy and nothing at all to sell. The 
spirit of adventure soon appeased itself and the Norse sea rovers returned to their own 
country. To this undefined line of coast now vaguely known to them they gave the name 
of ViNLAND ; for the wild grape-bearing vine grew abundantly in many parts. The old 
Icelandic chroniclers insist that the country was pleasant and beautiful. As compared with 
their own mountainous and frozen island of the north the coasts of New England may well 
have seemed delightful. 

RECKLESS CHARACTER OF THE NORSE SEA-ROVERS. 
The men who thus first visited tiie northeastern parts of the United States were a race 
•f hardy adventurers as lawless and restless as ^ny that ever .sailed the deep. Their mariners 
and captains penetrated every clime. Already before their discovery of America they had 
taken the better parts of France and England. All the inonarchs of the latter country after 
William the Conqueror — himself the grandson of a sea-king — are descendants of the Norse 
men. They were rovers of the sea ; freebooters and pirates ; warriors audacious and head- 
strong, wearing hoods surmounted with eagles' wings and walruses' tusks, mailed armor, 
and for robes the skins of polar bears. Woe to the people on whose defenceless coasti the 



EPOCH OF DISCOVERY AND PLANTING. 39 

Vikings landed with sword and torch ! Their wayward life and ferocious disposition are 
well portrayed in one of their own old ballads : 

He scorns to rest 'neath the smoky rafter, 

He plows with his boat the roaring deep ; 
The billows boil and the storm howls after — 
But the tempest is only a thnig of laugliter- 

The sea-king loves it better than sleep ! 

The Norse discoveries in America are clouded with uncertainties of time and circum- 
stance. That settlements were made in Massachustts and Rhode Island cannot be doubted. 
New bands of rovers came and others returned to Greenland and Iceland. For about three 
centuries voyages continued to be made by the Norsemen, and it is believed that as late as 
1347 a Norwegian ship visited Labrador and the northeastern parts of the United States. 
The Norse remains which have been found at Newport, at Garnet Point, on Fall River and 
several other places seem to point clearly to some such events as are here described. The 
Icelandic poets and historians give a uniform and tolerably consistent account of the early 
exploits of their countr}'nien in Vinland. When the word America is mentioned in the 
hearing of the Icelandic schoolboys they will at once answer with enthusiasm, " Oh, yes ; 
Leif Erickson discovered that country in the year looi." 

These events, however, like all others, are to be weighed by their consequences. From 
the discover)' of America by the Norsemen no historical results followed. Mankind were 
neither wiser nor better. The nature and significance of the discovery were in no wise 
understood by the men who made it. Among the Icelanders tliemsel\-es the place and the 
verj' name of Vinland were forgotten. Europe never heard of such a country or such a 
discovery. Historians have until the last half centur}' been incredulous on the subject and 
the fact is as though it had never been. The curtain which had been lifted for a moment 
was stretched again from sky to sea and the New World still lay hidden in the shadows. 

OTHER TRADITIONS OF EARLY DISCOVERY. 

Other traditions of discovery now come into view. It is said that before the final 
relinquishment of America by the Norse adventurers a sea- wanderer from rugged Wales had 
touched upon our eastern shores. The tradition runs that the Welsh prince Aladoc was not 
less fortunate than Leif Erickson in finding the western shore of the Atlantic ; but the 
evidence of this exploit is far less satisfactory than that by which the Icelandic discoveries 
have been authenticated. According to the legend which the Cambrian chroniclers with 
patriotic pride have preserved and the poet Southey has transmitted, j\Iadoc was the son of 
the Welsh king Owen Gwynnedd, who flourished about the middle of the twelfth century. 
At this time a civil disturbance occurred in Wales and Prince jNIadoc was obliged to save 
himself by flight. With a small fleet he left the countr}- in the year 11 70 and after sailing 
westward for several weeks came to an unknown shore, beautiful and wild, inhabited by a 
strange race of men unlike the people of Europe. 

For some time the Prince and his sailors tarried in the new land, delighted with its 
exuberance and with the salubrious climate. Then all but twenty of the daring company 
set sail and returned to Wales. It was the intention of Madoc to make preparations and 
return again. Ten ships were fitted out and the leader with his adventurous crew a second 
time set his prows to the west. The vessels dropped out of sight one b)' one and were never 
heard of more. The thing may ha\-e happened. 

IMeanwhile human intelligence and reason had had their growth. In the latter ]\Iiddle 
Ages there were many symptoms of a revival, a resurrection from the intellectual death 



40 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



1 



From aooonnu oonuloeil lo 

El«T«Dili Century 



which had so long prevailed in the world. Leading thinkers in many countries began to 
doubt the correctness of the accepted views respecting the character and figure of the earth. 
Intellectual curiosity was excited, as it must ever be in the presence of an unsolved problem. 
Was the world round or flat ? Had the ocean another shore ? Wiiat kind of a verge or 
precipice was drawn around the cloudy rim of nature ? What vision of wonder and peril 
might arise upon the mariner's sight — 

" Beyond tlie extreme sea-wall aud between the remote sea gates?" 

If a man go could he return again ? 

DIM CONCEPTIONS OF THE EARTH'S SPHERICITY. 

As the shadows of the mediaeval darkness began to roll away these queries were quick 
in the adventurous brain of New Europe. The vigorous sailors of the maritime republic of 
Italy and the daring travellers who had gone }/J> 
(as they thought) to Jerusalem and thence dotcu 
to India imagined that they could perceive the 
sphericity of the earth. They believed that the 
Holy City was set on the crest or ridge of the 
world! More particularly did tliose who journeyed 
northward and southward behold the stars rising 
overhead or sinking to the horizon in a way un- 
accountable except on the notion that the earth 
is round. 

From the shores of Portugal and Spain, from 
Brest and Land's End, from the Skaggerack, the 
Orkneys and Iceland, the man of the fourteenth 
century looked wistfully, thoughtfully to the 
ocean of Atlas. He would fain tr>' his power 
in that world of waters. 

Rumor, tradition said that others had gone 
tnd come again in safety. The old knight of 
St. Albans, Sir John de Mandeville, coming from 
the far East in the year 1356 thus discourses 
on the problem which after a hundred and forty years was to receive a final solution at 
the hands of Columbus and Cabot : 

"Wherefore men may easily perceive that tlie land and the sea are of round shape and 
figure, for that part of the finnament which is seen in one country is not seen in another. 
And men may prove both by experience and sound reasoning that if a man, having passage 
by ship, should go to search the world, he might with his vessel sail around the world both 
above and under it This proposition I prove as follows : I have myself in Prussia seen the 
North Star by the astrolabe fifty-three degree above the horizon. Further on in Bohemia 
it rises to the height of fifty-eight degrees. And still further northward it is sixty-two 
degrees and some minutes high. I myself have so measured it. Now the South Pole Star 
is, as I have said, opposite the North Pole Star. And about these poles the whole celestial 
sphere revolves like a wheel about the axle ; and the firmament is thus divided into two 
equal parts. From the north I have tunied southward, passed the equator, and found that 
in Libya the Antarctic Star first appears above the horizon. Further on in those lands that 
star rises higher until in Southern Libya it reaches the height of eighteen degrees and 




EPOCH OF DISCOVERY AND PLANTING. 41 

certain minutes, sixty minutes making a degree. After going by sea and by land towards 
that country [Australia, perhaps] of which I have spoken, I have found the Antarctic Star 
more than thirty-three degrees above the horizon. And if I had had company and shipping 
to go still further I know of a certainty that I should have seen the whole circumference 
of the heavens, . . . and I repeat that men may environ the whole world, as well 
under as above, and return to their own country if they had company and ships and 
conduct. And always, as well as in their own land, shall they find inhabited continents 
and islands. For know you well that they who dwell in the Southern Hemisphere are feet 
against feet of them who dwell in the Northern Hemisphere, just as we and they that dwell 
under us are feet to feet. For everj' part of the sea and the land hath its antipode. 

Moreover, when men go on a journey toward India and the foreign islands, they do 
on the whole route circle the circumference of the earth even to those countries which are 
under us. And therefore hath that same thing which I heard recited when I was young 
happened many times. Howbeit, upon a time a worthy man departed from our country to 
explore the world. And so he passed India and the islands beyond India — more than five 
thousand in number — and so long he went by sea and land, environing the world for many 
seasons, that he found an island where he heard them speaking his own language, halloo- 
ing at the oxen in the plow with the identical words spoken to beasts in his own countr}\ 
Forsooth he was astonished, for he knew not how the thing might happen. But I assure 
you that he had gone so far by land and sea that he had actually gone around the world and 
was come again through the long circuit to his own district. It only remained for him to 
go forth and find his particular neighborhood. Unfortunately he turned from the coast 
which he had reached and thereby lost all his painful labor, as he himself afterwards 
acknowledged when he returned home. For it happened by and by that he went into 
Norway, being driven thither by a storm, and there he recognized an island as being the 
same in which he had heard men calling the o.xen in his own tongue ; and that was a 
possible thing. And yet it seemeth to simple unlearned rustics that men maj' not go 
around the world, and if they did they would fall off ! But that absurd thing never could 
happen unless we ourselves, from where we are, should fall toward heaven ! For upon 
what part soever of the earth men dwell, whether above or under, it always seemeth to 
them that they walk more perpendicularly than other folks ! And just as it seemeth to us 
that our antipodes are under us head downwards, just so it seemeth to them that we are 
under them head downwards. If a man might fall from the earth towards heaven, by 
much more reason the earth itself, being so heavy, should fall to heaven — an impossible 
thing." 

TYRANNY OF CHURCH AND FEUDALISM. 

Such were the reasonings of the old Knight of St. Albans at the middle of the four- 
teenth century. He was himself a traveller of great renown, and came home from the 
far east to record, in the thirteenth year of Edward III. , the things which he had gathered 
by observation and tradition. To what extent such opinions were abroad among the best 
thinkers of the age we may never know. It must be remembered that the epoch was one 
of fear, superstition, dread — that it was an age in which the State taught men what tilings 
to do and the Church what things to believe. The correctness of the reasonings and deduc- 
tions of Sir John j\Iandeville may well astonish us. It would be difficult to find in them 
any error except the mistaken reckoning of the length of a degree of longitude, and for 
that he was in no measure responsible. His suggestions and inferences, however, passed 
for little. They were regarded as the speculations of an imaginative mind, and the so-called 



42 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

"practical men" of the fourteenth centun- made no effort to apply them to the circum- 
navigation of the globe. 

Nearly a centur\- and a half now elapsed before the problems of the sea were again 
taken up by navigators and adventurers. The sun of chivalry set and the expiring energies 
of feudalism ebbed awaj- in Europe. The elder Capets gave place to the Houses of Valoia 
and Orleans in France. The bloody wars of York and Lancaster made England desolate 
and barren ; but the myster)- of the Atlantic still lay unsolved under the shadows of the 
west. At last Louis XI. rose above the ruins of feudal France, and Henry VII. over the 
fragments of broken England. In Spain Ferdinand and Isabella, expelling both the Jew 
and the Mohammedan, consolidated their kingdoms, and prepared the way for the Spanish 
ascendancy in the times of their grandson. Destiny had decreed that this kingdom should 
become the patron and bear the honor of that great enterprise by which a New World was 
given first to Castile and Leon and afterwards to mankind. As to him who was destined to 
make the glorious discovery, his birth had been reserved for Italy. 

The stor>' of Christopher Columbus belongs in its completeness to another part of the 
present work. There the reader shall see displayed in full the sad disadvantages and endless 
disappointments to which the discoverer was doomed. For a moment the career of Columbus 
blazes out in meteoric splendor, shedding a lustre over half tbo world ; then he falls into 
nnmerited decline and ignominy and the tragedy ends with national ingratitude and injus- 
tice. There is in the drama every quality calculated to excite sympathy for the greatness 
of the man and applause for his immortal. work. 

For the present we pause only to note with keen regret the misadventures, ill luck and 
jealousv by which the name of Columbus was withheld from the islands and continents 
which he discovered. It is known to all the world how Amerigo Vespucci visiting the 
shores of South America in 1499, and returning to inform Europe that the new countr>- was 
another continent and not a part of India, secured for himself the name of the New World. 
History- at length, however, corrects the mistakes of men. There is a gradual elimination 
of contrivance and fraud from her immaculate pages. Though the name of America may 
never give place to Columbia the latter has fixed itself in the poetry and art of all lands as 
the true designation of our Western World. 

CIVILIZATION OF THE PERUVIANS AND MEXICANS. 

When Europeans first landed on the eastern shores of these continents the country 
was found inhabited by various races. In some parts, especially towards the north, there 
was savagery and barbarism. In other portions higher forms of civilization were discovered. 
In Central America and in the adjacent parts of the two greater continents evidences of the 
civilized life were found scarcely inferior to the existing conditions in the best parts of the 
world. In comparing the cities and peoples of Peru, Central America and Mexico with 
European communities of the same centurj-, or with the civilized races of the ancient world, 
much allowance must be made for ethnic prejudice and for the fact that the materials of the 
inquiry have all been gathered by men of the conquering races. 

The primitive civilized peoples of. the three Americas have had no voice. Their 
poets and philosophers and advocates have not been heard in the great assizes where the 
relative merits of the peoples of the Old World and the New were to be decided. It is 
known, however, that nearly all the arts and sciences which were cultivated by the Ara- 
bians and Europeans in the later ^liddle Ages were known to the Central .\niericans, the 
Peruvians and the Mexicans. Pizarro, conqueror of Peru, was constrained in 1531 to 
acknowledge that the only superiority which the Spaniards whom he led could claim was in 



EPOCH OF DISCO\^ERY AND PLANTING. 



43 



military discipline and weaponry. In other respects the Peruvians were fully the equals of 
the invaders of their country. The physical evidences of civilization were on every hand. 
Post-roads, aqueducts and temples stood as the tangible evidence of what the Peruvian 
builders were able to accomplish. Mining and manufacturing flourished. Agriculture was 
carried to a high degree of perfection. The fine arts were patronized, and sculpture rose to 
a degree of excellence but little below that of Egypt and Greece. 

A similar condition of affairs was found by Cortez in Mexico in 15 19. The Mexicatu: 
also were adepts in the arts and sciences. The Spaniards chose to affect great horror at the 
religioiis rites which were practised by the Aztecs, and particularly at human sacrifice. But 
the world has failed to balance the account ; for even in this particular the cruelties of the 
Mexican priests were not equal to those of the Spanish Inquisition. It is forgotten that 




AZTECS SACRIFICING TO THE SUN. 



many races have thought it pleasing to the gods to offer human beings on sacrificial altars. 
Such practices were common in the Orient. At the time of the Carthaginian ascendancy 
the offering of human beings was a common circumstance of the national religion. While 
the Romans did not sacrifice men on altars they exposed them to wild beasts in the arena, 
or compelled them to meet their trained gladiators in the bloody circus. 

It is now conceded that many of the most elevating discoveries of science were made 
by the Mexicans before they were made in Europe. The astronomy of the Aztecs was by no 
means despicable. They were familiar with the planets and stars and with the orderly pro- 
cesses of the heavens. They had perhaps the most complete calendar which men had 
invented prior to the establishment of the Gregorian system. The great calendar stone 
which has been preserved from the beginning of the sixteenth century shows conclusivdy 



44 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



the advanced astronomical knowledge of the people who produced it. The Mexican archi- 
tecture was of so high an order as to rival that of the Moors, and their wealth, according t© 
the testimony of their conquerors, was quite incalculable. 

WHENCE CAME THE FIRST SETTLERS OF AMERICA? 

For four centuries speculation has been rife respecting the origin of tlie races of the 
New World. One hypothesis after another has been started and passed like a wave over 
the intelligence of the age, only to give place to the next People without a knowledge of 
geography or the historical movements of mankind have attempted to show tliat the native 
races of America were the descendants of tlie Semitic peoples fonnerly living in the valley 




AZTEC CALENDAR STONE. 

of the Kuphrates; but such a supposition is preposterous and need not occupy the attention 
of any rational being. Others again liave believed that the races of tlie New World were 
indigenous, like the animals and plants, which differ much from those of Europe and Asia. 
Some have thought that aforetime — as we have said above — a great land bridge extended 
from Greenland to Labrador, thus furnishing a means of transit from the Eastern to the 
Western world. The easiness of passage across Bering's strait has furnished good ground 
for the stipposition of ethnic kinship between a part of the American aborigines and the 
peoples of Northeastern Asia. Some of the ablest ethnologists have traced lines of progress 
from island to island across the Pacific from the Malay peninsula to the western coast of 



EPOCH OF DISCOVERY AND PLANTING. 45 

South America. As for absolute knowledge of the origin of the American aborigines there 
is none. There are, however, good grounds for holding the belief in the common origin 
of all mankind, and it is easy to perceive several methods by which in the almost limitless 
ages of the past communication between the Eastern and the Western hemispheres might 
have been found and maintained until both were peopled. It is possible that the 
expressions Old World and New World have little foundation in fact. Indeed there are not 
wanting geological evidences that — as has already been said — the American continents 
emerged from the primaeval waters at an earlier epoch than did Europe or Africa. 

The difference in the physical, mental and moral states of the peoples of the East and 
West four centuries ago has been greatly exaggerated. Difference there certainly was in 
manners, customs and laws. Difference we may properly allow in the average grade of 
•civilization. But the most striking particular in which the peoples east and west of the 
Atlantic differed the one from the other was as it respects aggressiveness, progress and 
ambition. These qualities belonged to the men of Europe. In the men of the New World 
they were largely wanting. The civilized communities of Central America, of Peru and 
Mexico, like some of the Oriental peoples of to-day, were contented with the stage of devel- 
opment which they had reached. They sought nothing beyond, either by discovery or 
conquest The peculiar trait which caught the attention of the first Spanish and English 
marauders in the New World was the general content of the natives with their condition. 
Doubtless there was among the native communities an imperceptible growth by which the 
people were slowly carried forward into newer and improved conditions, but the movement 
was so slow as to escape attention in any given age and to produce results only after long 

lapses of time. 

EFFECTS OF COMMERCE ON CIVILIZATION. 

One of the concomitants — perhaps we might say one of the causes — of this condition 
was the absence of the commercial spirit and of maritime adventure. Commerce and sea- 
faring came from east to west. Neither spirit prevailed in any part of the New World. 
Commerce, even in the most civilized communities, hardly rose above the level of barter, 
and sea-going extended no further than the navigation of rivers and the safe waters along 
the shores of placid seas. 

The Mediterranean countries, on the other hand, were specially favorable for the 
development of commerce and maritime adventure. Voyages from island to island and 
from coast to coast were easily undertaken, and the maritime spirit rose at a very early age. 
It became an enthusiasm, a passion. The Phoenicians and Carthaginians and Greeks were 
men of tlie sea. The same spirit at length prevailed in the westernmost parts of Europe. 
Navigation was improved and new means discovered for reaching distant regions of the 
globe. But in the New World none of these conditions and motives existed. The native 
peoples of America were land-peoples, and little ambitious of the sea. Content and 
possibly the spirit of ease prevailed with the Central American races, and commerce and 
navigation were therefore little cultivated. 

It should not be understood, however, that aboriginal America such as it was four 
centuries ago was poor in those treasures which excite the ambitions and lusts of men. In 
many parts of these continents rich mines of gold and silver existed. Many of the gulf 
waters abounded in pearls. It were long to enumerate the native treasures which might be 
gathered by brave and adventurous marauders among the peaceable and well-contented 
peoples who inhabited the central parts of our hemisphere at the beginning of the sixteenth 
century. 



46 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



We should remember, however, tliat the actual treasures of the New World were not 
comparable with the fabulous. Stor>' and imagination wrought astonishing fictions of the 
gorgeous wealth which abounded in the new lands. Every adventurer carried the torch 
of fancy ; and though each nightfall 
found him unrewarded he slept and 
dreamed of the riches that should 
come with the morrow. 

From this distance we are easily 
able to summarize the motives which 
carried the European adventurers to 
our shores. The men who crossed 
the Atlantic at the close of the 
fifteenth and the beginning of the 
si.xteenth century were inflamed, first 
of all, with the passion of gold-hunt- 
ine. A second motive was the ac- 
quisition of territory, and the third 
— though less sincere — was the purpose of bringing new races of men to the Christian 
relieion as taught and formulated bv the Church of Rome. On the whole it was a matter 
of gain and conquest. Men, for many generations given over to the struggles of war, of 
barbarism, of wild adventure in eastern lands, found at length to the west of the Atlantic 
vast new regions in which their energies and passions might have free play and reach 
satiety. 




A PHCENICIAN SHIP. 




CHAPTER II. 



THE DISCOVERY IN FACT. 







LONG darkness between the begin- 
ning of the eleventh centurj' and the mod- 
ern era was at length broken into dawn. 
The fifteenth century is one of the most impor- 
tant which history has to consider since the 
classical ages. It was at that time that the broken-up condition of Europe was amended 
somewhat by the establishment of better institutions. The political estate of the Continent 
was greatly improved. In France, during the reign of Louis XL, the feudal institutions of 
the Middle Ages were made to yield to regular government. In Germany, the same thing 
happened in the reign of ^Maximilian. In England, the princes of the House of Tudor 
became real kings, and confirmed their authority throughout the realm. In Spain in par- 
ticular, there was a great consolidation of society coincident with the marriage of Ferdinand 
and Isabella. It was for this epoch that the real discovery of the American continents had 
been reserved. Spain was the destined nation under whose banners the greatest event of 
modern times was to be accomplished. The man and the leader, however, was to be found 
in that great central peninsirla of Europe in which the ancient Romans had left their 
progeny. Out of Italy came Christopher Columbus, born of the necessity of the age he 
lived in, fitted by genius and afterward by education for the great work of crossing the 
Atlantic and confirming the existence of new lands in the West. 

(47) 



48 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 




SPHERICITY OF THE WORLD. 

Let lis see what part of tlie discovery of America may properly be awarded to the man 
of Genoa. As we have seen, tlie Norsemen, and possibly other adventurers, had been to 

our shores before him. He did not originate the 
idea of the sphericity of the earth. That had been 
believed in by some of the ancients. The theory 
of the globular form of our planet had been advo- 
cated but not demonstrated. Copernicus and Gali- 
leo did not precede, but followed Columbus. The 
old English traveler, Sir John IMandeville, living at 
the middle of the fourteenth century and contribut- 
ing what may be regarded as the first book ever 
written in the English language, had shown by 
theory, and in a measure by observation, the spher- 
ical form of the world. He had declared that the 
earth is a globe ; that he had traveled northward 
and observed the polar star rising to the zenith ; 
that he had gone southward and the Antarctic con- 
stellations had risen in like manner ; that it was 
possible for a mariner to sail around the world ; and 
that indeed one adventurer had done so. " And 
therefore," says the old traveler, " hath that same 
thing, which I heard recited when I was young, 
happened many times. Howbeit, upon a time, a 
-worthy man departed from our countr}' to ex- 
plore the world. And so he passed India and 
the islands beyond India — more than five thou- 
sand in number — and so long he went by sea and 
land, environing the world for many seasons, 
that he found an island where he heard them 
speaking in his own language, hallooing at the 
oxen in the plow with the identical words spoken 
to beasts in his own countr)'. Forsooth, he was 
astonished ; for he knew not how the thing might 
happen. But I assure you that he had gone so 
far by land and sea that he had actually gone 
around the world and was come again through 
the long circuit to his own district. It only 
remained for him to go forth and find his partic- 
ular neighborhood. Unfortunately he turned 
from the coast which he had reached, and thereby 
lost all his painful labor, as he himself after- 
ward acknowledged when he returned home. 
For it happened by and by that he went into 
Norwav, being driven thither by a stonn ; and there he recognized an i.sland as being the 
.same in which he had heard men calling the oxen in his own tongue ; and that was a 



COLUMBUS, FROM A PAINTING MADE BY 
ORDER OF ISABELLA. 




COLUMBUS, AFTER CAPRIOLA 



ROME, 




DREAM VISIONS OF INSPIRATION. 



(49) 



^ 



5° 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



possible thing. And yet it seemetli to simple, unlearned rustics that men may not go 
around the world, and if they did tliey ivouldfall off! " 

The fourteentli century, however, produced no jiractical discover)-. Mandeville, though 
believing vaguely, perliaps confidently, in the spliericity of the earth, was not bold enough 




j^//?/t 



/.MMMklA- 



ARCHBISHOP MENDOZA INTRODUCING COLUMUIS TO FERDINAND. 

to undertake the hazardous task of circumnavigation. It remained for Columbus to become 
the first practical believer in the theory of the old wise astronomers. If he did not 
himself succeed in circumnavigating the globe, he led tlie way, and proved the possibility 
of doing so. 

The mistake of the great Genoese navigator was this — that he conceived the earth to be 
much smaller tlian it is. In his da\' tlie correct measurement of a degree of latitude had 




RECEPTION OF COLUMSrS BY KERDI.XAXD AND ISABELLA. 



(51) 



52 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



not been made. The result was that Columbus confidently expected, in sailing westward, 
to reach the Indies after a voyage of about 3000 miles ; for he supposed the world to be 
no more than 12,000 miles in girth. It must be remembered that it was not the purpose of 
Columbus to sail around the globe, but to discover a new all-water route across the Atlantic 
to the East Indies. 

THE GREAT DISCOVERY. 

The true date of the birth of Christopher Columljus remains in dispute. Probably it 
was in the year 1435. His birthplace has also been in controversy, without sufficient cause. 
It is now known that he began his existence in a certain street in Genoa, and the ver)" 
house in which he was born has been determined and suitably inscribed. The discoverer 
was a scion of a seafaring family. His education was undertaken with some care, but 
before reaching what in our times would be called graduation, he left off his studies and 
went to sea. He had a passion for the sailor's art and for adventure. There is in his life 
an obscure period of about twenty years, in which he traversed the Mediterranean, issuing 
at intervals through the Straits of Gibraltar. He visited the western ports of Europe, went 
to Iceland about 1470, learned there the tradition of new lands in the West, and returned 
to Portugal and Spain, dreaming, we may presume, of a possibility of sailing westward to the 

Indies. He was at this time 
in poverty. For about ten years 
he went from court to court 
begging for the support of ignor- 
ant sovereigns for his enterprise 
of a transatlantic voyage. He 
explained to monks replete with 
bigotry and scholasticism the 
ease with which — as he believed 
— the East Indies could be 
reached by sailing westward. 
The court of the King and 
Queen of Sjiain was an tmfruitful place, but was perhaps the most enlighted in Europe. 
At last Columbus found an appreciative listener in the Queen Isabella of Castile, the royal 
spouse of King Ferdinand. She became a constant and faithful friend to the navigator, 
and never abandoned him to her dying day. 

The story of the fitting out of the three ships by Columbus and of their sailing from 
the harbor of Palos on August 3, 1492, is known to all the world. The voyage to the West 
Indies occupied seventy-one days. It was with the morning light of October 12 that 
Triana, a sailor on the Pinta, first saw the land. It was calendared, perhaps with truth, 
that Columbus had on the night before, at about ten o'clock, .seen a light on what was 
afterward supposed to be Cat Island. But the discovery of the following morning was 
clear and incontrovertible. The signal gun was fired and the ships lay to. A landing was 
effected. The natives came down to the .shore to see their .strange visitors. The two races 
stood face to face. The banner of Castile was set up on the beach, and the island, called 
in the native speech Guanihani, was named San Salvador. 

Other discoveries quickly followed. The Islands of Concepcion, Cuba and Hayti were 
visited. A fort was erected on the bay of Caracola in the last-named island, the timbers 
saved from the wreck of the Santa Maria being used in the building of this first structure 
by Europeans in the New World. The explorations continued for about three months. In 




THE FLEET OF COLUMBUS. 




LANDING ON THE SHORE OF SAN SALVADOR. 



^53) 



54 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



tlie first week of January, 1493, Colu.nbus set sail for Spain, taking with him the 
inchibitable proof of what he had found in the West — vegetable products, birds, animals and 
human beings. He arrived in the month of March and was greeted with an outburst of 
applause and enthusiasm such as the age was able to render. At that epoch, owing to the 
conservative spirit of the times, the prevalent superstitions and the want of communication, 
no general rejoicings such as those of modern times were possible. 

The temper of the Spanish authorities was now completely changed. Columbus was a 
hero, and might have whatever lie pleased. His disco\-ery in the West had not corre- 
sponded to his expectations ; for the Indies which he had found v/ere not the Indies of 
Jlarco Polo. On the second voyage the discoverer had a respectable fleet and more 
mariners than he could take with him. He reached the Windward Group, and explored the 




LANDING IN ST. NICHOLAS HARBOR, HAYTI. 

coasts of Jamaica and Porto Rico. A colony was established in Ha\ti, and Diego Columbus 
was appointed governor. For nearly three years the voyage was continued in a desultory 
way among the West India Islands. Not until the summer of 1496 did Columbus a second 
time return to Spain ; and his arrival was by no means greeted as before. The interested 
race of courtiers had risen against him, among whom were the powerful Fonseca and his 
Jewish retainer, Rreviesca, with whom Columbus had a personal encounter. His own 
subordinates had made false reports, and his fortunes and reputation had already begun to 
decline. He became the victim of jealousies and suspicions from which he never recovered. 
Persecution followed him during the remainder of his life. On his third voyage he found 
the Island of Trinidad, traversed the Gulf of Para, and reached the mainland of South 




COI,UMBUS KNOCKING DOWN AN INSOLENT MUTINEER. 



(55) 



56 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



America not far from the mouth of the Orinoco. On his return voyage he visited Hayti, where 
he found his colony in a desperate condition. He attempted to restore order, but was seized 
by Bobadilla, wlio liad been sent out from Spain, and who now, in exercise of a disgusting 
and cruel authority, put the discoverer in chains and carried him back to Spain. The 
disgrace, however, was more than could be borne even at the Spanish court. Columbus 
was liberated and sent on a fourth vo\age to fiud the coveted Indies. But this expedition 
was little fruitful in results. Exjjloratious were made for a great distance along the south side 

of the Gulf of IMexico ; but little 
was accomplished of practical 
advantage. Columbus, already 
weakened by maladies and the 
breaking of his spirit, yielded to 
the discouragements of the situa- 
tion and returned once more to 
vSjxiin. On his arrival he learned 
that Isabella was dead. That 
was the end of his hopes ; for he 
was an Italian. They who were 
stronger than he had gradually 
torn from him his rights and 
honors. He was now old and 
friendless, and .soon tottered into 
the grave. He died in poverty 
at Valladolid, leaving his hopes 
and his fame to posterity. 

NAMING THE NEW WORLD. 

Auioug the injuries done to 
the great discoverer, was that 
which gave the name of the New 
World to another. That honor 
fell to Amerigo Vespucci, or in 
the I^atin spelling, AmericusVes- 
pucius. This navigator was a 
native of Florence. He was one 
of those who followed quickly in 
the wake of the Columbian dis- 
coveries. He was not devoid of 
abilities and ambitions. In the 
year 1499 he reached the coast 
of South America, though the 
results of his voyage were not 
conspicuous. In 1501 he made 
another voyage, and returning to Europe published the first general account of the dis- 
coveries made in the Western World. liy him it was established that the new islands and 
mainland on the Western shores of the Atlantic were not the East Indies already known to 
fame, but were in fact the borderlands of another continent. Vespucci slurred over and 
ignored the part taken by Columbus in the revelation of the New World ; and thus 1)y 




sliXT TO SP.\IN IN CH.\I.\S. 



EPOCH OF DISCOVERY AND PLANTING. 



57 



political skill, aided by the stupidity of the age, secured for himself the name which 
rightfully belonged to the man of Genoa. The Continent was henceforth called America 
and not Columbia. 

The transnavigation of the Atlantic and the revelation of new islands and continents 
in the West gave an electrical shock to the lethargic spirit of Europe. No other event in 
the history of mankind had opened so large a prospect for enterprise and adventure. Spain 
in particular, under whose auspices the New World had been found, burned with a zeal that 
could hardly be quenched. Within ten years after the death of the discoverer, all the 
greater islands of the West Indian group had been found, explored and colonized. In the 
year 15 lo the first colony was planted on the Continent, being on the Isthmus of Darien. 
From this vantage-ground another great discovery, not of a new world, but of a new ocean, 
was imminent. In 1513, Vasco Nunez Balboa, governor of the colony of Darien, learning 
from the natives that a great water lay spread not far to the w^est, climbed over the slight 
central range of the narrow isthmus, and from an eminence beheld the limitless Pacific. 
He and his companions went down to the water's edge. Carrying in his hand the banner 
of Spain, he waded in, in the pompous fashion of his age and race, and with drawn sword 
and flourish, took pos- 
session of the great 
deep in the name of 
Ferdinand the Cath- 
olic. 

THE 
"LAND OF FLOWERS." 
On the second voy- 
age of Columbus he 
had had with him a 
companion named 
Juan Ponce de Leon. 
This brave and roman- 
tic personage now 

became a discoverer on his own account. He had been governor of Porto Rico, and had there 
become rich and grown old. In the meantime, a tradition had gone forth in the Spanish 
countries that somewhere in the Bahama Islands there was a fountain of eternal youth. 
Into that all the aged, could they find it, might plunge and be young again. The story 
appealed to the romantic sentiments of the decaying De Leon, and in the year 15 12 he 
sailed from Porto Rico in quest of the fabulous fountain. He went first to San Salvador 
and the neighboring islands, and then beating out west came to an unknown coast. It was 
the twenty-seventh of March and Easter Sunday. De Leon supposed that he had found a 
new island. The shores were covered with a luxuriant forest. The horizon across the 
bright waters was banked with green leaves. Birds of song were heard singing there, and 
the fragrance of blossoms was wafted to the ships. The day on which the discovery was 
made was called in the calendar of the church, Pascua Florida, or in Spanish, Pasqua de 
Flores. This notion caught the imagination of Ponce, and he named the new shore Florida 
— the Land of Flowers. A landing was made a few days later, near the point of discovery ; 
and there were laid the foundations of St. Augustine. The Spanish banner and arms were 
planted, and the country claimed for Spain by the right of discovery. De Leon continued 
his search for the fountain of youth. He went about bathing in many waters up and down 




DEATH OF COLUMBUS. 




b 
O 

a 

H 

O 



Q 
•t 






w 

O 
3 



(5S) 



EPOCH OF DISCOVERY AND PLANTING. 



59 



tlie coast, saw the Tortugas, doubled Cape Florida, and tlien, giving up the quest sailed 
back to Porto Rico. The law of nature had prevailed over tradition ; he was no }ounc;er 
than before. 




BAI,BOA CLAIMING POSSESSION OF THB PACIFIC. 

The discovery of Florida was of great importance. Here indeed the Spaniards planted 
themselves on solid ground. The King of Spain appointed De Leon governor of his Land 



6o 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



of Flowers, and ordered him to colonize the country. The old knight of adventure was 
slow in doing this, and it was nine years after the discovery before he returned to his 
province. He found there the usual results of Spanish cupidity and cruelty. The Indians 
had become hostile. When De Leon's colony debarked the natives attacked them and 
killed a great number, and the rest were obliged to fly for their lives. In order to save 
themselves, they took to ship and sailed away. Ponce dc Leon v.-as himself struck with an 
arrow and mortally wounded. He was taken to Cuba to die. 



FALL OF THE AZTECS. 

In the meantime Fernandez de Cordova had in the year 1517 sailed into the Bay of 
Campeachy, and discovered Yucatan. Exploring the northern coast, he was, like De Leon, 
attacked by the Indians and mortally wounded. In the following year the coast of Mexico 
was explored for many Icacijucs by Juan de Grijalva. He had for his assistant the pilot who 
bad conducted the expedition of Cordova. It was in these years that the knowledge of the 

Spaniards of the 



main shore of 
Central Amer- 
ica was greatly 
extended. In 
15 1 9, Fernando, 
or Hernando, 
Cortez landed at 
Tabasco, and 
began the ex- 
ploration and 
conquest of Mex- 
ico. His com- 
ing created the 
greatest excite- 
ment and con- 
sternation throughout the Empire of the Aztecs. The native warriors came forth by tens of 
thousands, to stay the progress of the invaders, but could not stand before them. Tlie coast 
was cleared by Cortez, and he began to press his way westward to \'era Cruz. From that 
point it was 180 miles to the City of Mexico, capital of the Aztecs, where Montezuma was 
Emperor. That monarch sent messengers to the Spaniards, counseling them not to advance 
into the interior. Cortez, however, was determinied to do this very thing, and he so notified 
the Mexican Emperor, saying that his business was urgent and that l^c must see his 
majesty in person. 

The alarmed natives in the next place sought to check the Spaniards with bribes. 
These, ho\vever, only inflamed the lust of the invaders. Cortez put all on the hazard of the 
die, burned his ships and set ouf. on his march to Mexico. Montezuma vainly forbade him 
to come nearer. The provincial races made peace with the conqueror as he marched tli rough 
their territories. The Mexican Emperor knew not what to do. He perceived that he could 
not bribe the Spaniards to stay away from his capital, and that to attempt to expel them by 
force would be like tempting the gods. Cortez and his warriors came within sight of the 
city. There arose the spires and temples of the famous Aztec metropolis. Montezuma 
came out and welcomed his remorseless enemies. On November 8, 1519, the Spaniards 




FtORIDA INDIANS FURIOUSI,Y ATTACK THE SPANIARDS. 



EPOCH OF DISCOVERY AND PLANTING. 



6i 



entered the capital and fixed themselves in the great central square before the temple of 
the Aztec god of war. 

For a short time Cortez went about examining the city at will. He visited the altars 
and shrines where human sacrifices were made to the gods of the race. He inspected the 
defences of the capital, and noted the methods of warfare employed by the Aztecs. He 
found vast treasures of gold and silver, limitless supplies of food, and arsenals filled with 
bows and javelins. At length, though he was master and in the midst of splendor and 
abundance, he began to feel alarmed about his situation. The Aztecs numbered millions. 
They had also become familiar with the invaders. They saw the Spanish cavaliers dismount 
and no longer believed that the man and the horse were one. They learned that the 
Spaniards could be killed like other living things. Their courage rose, and there were 
signs of an insurrection. Cortez, perceiving the danger, devised a scheme for seizing the 
person of Montezuma and holding him as a 
hostage for his people. News came that the 
natives at Vera Cruz had attacked the Spanish 
garrison ; and this gave color for the intended 
outbreak. Montezuma was seized, and was 
compelled to acknowledge himself a dependent 
of the King of Spain. The Emperor was also 
obliged to agree to pay an indemnity to Spain 
■of $6,300,000, and an annual tribute. 

For the time it seemed that Spanish domin- 
ion was established in IMexico. Cortez, how- 
ever, was soon imperiled by a movement in 
his rear. Valasquez, Governor of Cuba, claim- 
ing to be superior in authority to Cortez, sent 
a force to Mexico to arrest his progress and to 
supersede him in command. The expedition 
was conducted by Pamphilo De Narvaez, and 
embraced a force of 1200 heavy-armed soldiers, 
besides Indian auxiliaries. Cortez, however, 
was on the alert. Leaving behind him in the 
capital his subordinate Alvarado, he marched 
to the coast with fewer than 200 men. On 
the night of the 26th of Ma}^, 1520, he burst with his handful into the camp of De Narvaez 
at Vera Cruz, and compelled the whole force to surrender ! He induced the conquered 
army, six times as strong as his own, to join his standard, and with this great force he 
returned to the capital. 

In that city affairs were in a desperate condition. The Mexicans had risen against 
Alvarado and cooped him up in a palace. When Cortez reached the city, he entered 
without serious opposition, and rescued Alvarado's command ; but the Aztecs could no 
longer be placated, and the conflict broke out in earnest. The scenes that ensued could 
never be described. Tens of thousands of the natives were cut down in the streets. 
Blood ran in rivulets. Some of the Spaniards fell. For months together there ^vas 
incessant fighting in and around the city, and Cortez, to save himself from destruction, was 
obliged to adopt another perfidious strategem. He compelled the captive Montezuma to 
go out into an exposed place and counsel his people to submit. In their rage and vexation 




HERNANDO CORTEZ. 



62 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



1 



they let fly a shower of javelins, and IMontezuma was fatally wounded. Cortez was driven 
out of the city ; but he continued the siege and gradually prevailed. A great battle was 
fought in which the Spaniards were victorious. In August of 1521, the city was taken, and 
the Empire of the Aztecs extinguished ; Mexico became a province of Spain. 

FIRST CIRCUMNAVIGATION OF THE GLOBE. 

While these events were passing on the mainland, even a greater was enacted on the 

sea. Ferdinand Magellan, a 
Portuguese navigator, succeeded 
at last in making real the dream 
that had possessed the adven- 
ture of the age. He discovered 
an all-water route westward to 
the Indies. His patron in the 
enterprise was the King of 
Spain, now Charles V. For the 
King of Portugal had given no 
encouragement. A Spanish fleet 
of five ships, fitted and manned 
at public expense, was given to 
Magellan, who sailed from 
Seville in Angust of 15 19. 

The navigator crossed the 
equinoctial line, and reached 
the coast of South America. He 
sought to find on that shore 
some opening into the Pacific. 
He passed the winter on the 
coast of Brazil, and in the follow- 
ing year voyaging southward, 
came to the mouth of tlie strait 
which still bears his name. 
Through this he sailed into the 
open waters of the Pacific. He set 
his prows to the north of west. 
After four montlis, he came, in 
March of 1520, to the Ladrones, 
midway between Australia and 
Japan. Thence he reached the 
Pliilippines, and was there killed 
in a battle with the natives. 
Tlie fleet, however, continued to 
sail westward, reaching the i\Ioluccas and gathering there a cargo of spices. Now for the 
first time men of the white race sailing westward liad come into known parts of the Indies. 
All of Magellan's ships except one were so injured tliat they could proceed no further ; l)ut in 
the remaining vessel the crews were gathered, and setting sail that lone ship came by way of 
Good Hope and the western coast of Africa to Spain, where it arrived on the 17th of Septem- 
ber, 1522, having completed under the Spanish flag the first circumnavigation of the globe. 




"FiiTH OF MONTEZUMA. 




o 

w 
a 



(63) 



64 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



To this time belongs also the expedition of Lucas Vasquez de Ayllon. He was a 
wealthy planter of Hayti. Accompanied by six others like himself, he fitted out two ships, 
and went abroad throu<^h the West Indies, to gather slaves. This was in 1520. Tlie ships 
of Ayllon got to the coast of South Carolina, to which the leader gave the name of Chicora 
The natives were friendly, and made presents to the strangers. They were easily induced 
to throng the decks of the ships ; and then DeAllyon, watching his opportunity-, weighed 
anchor and sailed away. After two days a storm came down and sent one of the slave ships 
to the bottom. The Indians on the other vessels had been confined below the hatches, 
where, crowded together and huddling in terror, most of them died before reaching a worse 
destination. 

Emperor Charles V. rewarded De Ayllon with the governorship of Chicora. In 1525, 
the Spaniard returned to his province, and found the natives hostile. One ship ran aground 

_ in the mouth of the 

Cambahee, and the 
Indians, attacking 
the crews of the rest, 
drove them to fliglit. 
De Ayllon returned to 
Ilayti in humiliation 
and ruin. His enter- 
prise as slave trader 
ended in shame and 

failure. 

THE 

"FATHER OF WATERS." 

In 1526, De Nar- 
\ aez was appointed 
Governor of Florida ; 
his territory extended 
around a large part of 
the Gulf of Mexico. 

With a force of 300 men, he arrived in April of 1528 at Tampa Bay. The cunning natives, 
showing their trinkets, pointed to the north. The Spaniards caught the hint, and plunged 
into a country of swamps and rivers. They found the expected city of gold to be an 
Appalachee village of forty cabins. The adventurers at last got back to the harbor of St. 
Marks, and put to sea in some brigantines which they built. They were driven ashore, and 
all perished except four men, who under Lieutenant De Vaca reached the village of San 
Miguel on the Pacific coast, and were taken thence to the City of Mexico. 

A new expedition was planned in 1537, and put luider direction of the cavalier 
Ferdinand de Soto. The King of Spain appointed him Governor of Cuba and Florida, 
with the usual privilege of exploration and conquest. Six hundred high-born young 
Spaniards flocked to his standard. They were clad in the manner of knights, with all the 
trappings of chivalry. The expedition was fitted with all things requisite for an adventure 
into the New World under the inspiration of conquest and romance. The squadron, 
including ten vessels, sailed from San Lucar to Havana, where De Soto left his wife as 
governess, and then proceeded to Tampa Ba\-. Some of the adventurers were frightened 
when they saw the unbroken forests of the New World, and turned back ; but in June of 




Uli SOXU LANDING HIS FOKCES IN FLORIDA. 



EPOCH OF DISCOVERY AND PLANTING. 



65 



1539 the leader, with the greater number of his followers, set out into the interior. For 
three months they marched about, swimming rivers, wading morasses and, fighting Indians. 
October found them on Flint River, where they established themselves for the winter. In 
the following spring they set out in a northeasterly direction to find a great city, of which a 
woman was empress. The Spaniards reached the Ogechee in April of 1540. During that 
month they struggled on into South Carolina ; then turned westward into the mountains of 
North Carolina and Tennessee ; thence into Northern Georgia ; and thence to Lower 
Alabama. At Mauville, or Mobile, they attacked the Indian town, and killed or burned to 
death 2500 Indians. Arriving at Pensacola, they found the supply ships from Cuba; but 
not satisfied with the results thus far, they turned to the north into the country of the 
Chickasaws. They wandered far until February 15, 1541, when the Indians set on fire the 
town in which they were encamped, and well-nigh destroyed the invaders. 

Native guides brought De Soto to the Mississippi. The point of discovery was just 
below the Chickasaw Bluffs. Barges were 
built, and in May the Spaniards crossed 
into Arkansas. They lived on the wild 
abundance of the land of the Dakotas. 
They marched on to the St. Francis ; thence 
to the Hot Springs, passing the winter of 
1 541-2 on the Wachita. They cruelly 
abused and destroyed the Indians, who fell 
into their power, but became more and more 
desperate with their progress. They fol- 
lowed the Wachita to the Red River, and 
that stream to the Mississippi. De Soto 
was broken down. His dreams of conquest 
and empire had passed away. A fever 
seized him, and he died on the banks of the 
great river, and in the turbid waters his 
coffin was sunk by night. 

After the death of De Soto his suc- 
cessors wandered about until the summer 
of 1543, when they reached the Gulf of Mexico, and finally found shelter at the Spanish 
settlement at the mouth of the River of Palms. 




F 



U- U L F 

M F jci a o 



ROUTE OF DE SOTO S EXPEDITION. 



THE OLDEST WHITE MAN'S TOWN IN AMERICA. 

The next important enterprise of the Spaniards was entrusted to Pedro Melendez, a 
criminal and soldier of fortune. In the year 1565 he was commissioned by Philip II. to 
colonize Florida. He was to receive a large gift of land and a liberal salary. He gathered 
"together a colony of 2500 persons, and in July of 1565 sailed from Spain. On the 28th of 
August, he reached the coast of Florida, near the mouth of the St. John's. On this river, 
thirty-five miles in the interior, a colony of thirty Huguenots had been established ; and 
the extermination of this settlement was a part of the instructions of Melendez. He 
reached Florida on St. Augirstine's day and named the harbor and river in honor of that 
saint. Philip of Spain was proclaimed monarch of North America, and on the 8th of 
September the foundations were laid of St. Augustine, the oldest town built by white men 
"within the limits of the United States. 



66 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



Melendez next attacked and destroyed the Huguenot settlement on the St. John's. The 
French were butchered without mercy. The atrocity was indescribable. More than 700 
of the colonists were massacred. Only a small number of servants and mechanics were 
pennitted to live. Bloody were the auspices under which the first permanent European 
settlement was made in our countr>\ 

The present chapter may be properly concluded with a paragraph on the discoveries 
and adventures of the Portugese. John II., King of Portugal at the time of the first 
Columbian voyage, paid little attention to the New World. In 1495 he was succeeded by 
his son Manuel, who would gladly have taken part in the achievements of the Spaniards 
and the English ; but he was too late on the sea to gain for his countrj^men a pennanent 
footing on the North American coast. Not until the summer of 1501 was Caspar Cortereal 
commissioned to sail on a voyage of discovery. To him a fleet was given, and he reached 
America in the Summer of that year. He explored the American coast from Maine north- 
ward for about 700 miles. At that point he met the icebergs, and could go no farther. He 
succeeded in kidnapping fifty Indians, whom on his return to Portugal he sold as sla\-es. 
Another voyage was undertaken, with the distinct purpose of capturing natives for the 
slave market of Europe ; but a year went by, and no tidings came from the expedition. 
Then the brother of Cortereal sailed in search of him ; but neither the one nor the other 
was heard of afterward forever. The fate of the first Portuguese slave ships that came to 
our shores has remained a mystery of the sea. 




CHAPTER III. 



THE CABOTS AND THEIR FOLLOWERS. 




ANY writers have dwelt upon the state of enthusiasm and 
fervor which prevailed at the European courts when 
the news was borne abroad that Columbus had returned 
from the western shores of the Atlantic. True, there 
was great confusion in the reports. The navigator him- 
self supposed that he had found the Indies — the land 
of Cathay which Marco Polo and other story-telling 
travellers had described as lying on the easternmost 
parts of Asia. One thing was certain ; he had found 
land. Many islands had been circumnavigated. Others 
were so extensive as to seem to be continents. Clearly 
it was but the beginning of discovery. All imagina- 
tions were inflamed with the intelligence. Incredulity 
was brushed aside, and a vast trans- Atlantic world rose 
upon the imagination like a mirage beyond the desert. 

All the maritime nations immediately prepared to 
discover and to occupy the new lands in the West. The 
seafaring communities were quickest in sending forth their captains on the lines of discovery 
and adventure. England held — as she has ever done — a peculiarly favorable situation for 
the work of navigation and conquest over sea. Her mariners were bold and skilful. They 
had in them the courage of the Vikings, the hardihood of the Saxons and the imaginations 
of the Normans. When the news of Columbus' discoveries were spread abroad in the 
harbors of Merry England her captains, not a few, were ready to take up the work and go 
forth in search of the New World. 

Among the many who were excited to ambition and activity by the great event of 1493 
was Giovanni Gabotto or Kaboto, or as his name appears in English John Cabot. His 
birthplace was probably Venice, but his home was in Bristol, in West England. He was a 
seaman from his childhood. His voyages had reached to the easternmost parts of the 
Mediterranean. While in that far realm he had visited Mecca and had seen the incoming 
caravans from India laden with spices and gems. He believed as Columbus did that the 
far East might be reached by sailing to the westward, and this notion he succeeded in 
impressing upon three English merchants of Bristol who agreed to bear the expense of an 
expedition to be commanded by Cabot. ; 

The consent of the Crown, however, was necessary. Henry VII., first king of the 
House of Tudor, recently victorious over his enemies at the battle of Bosworth Field, cold 
and calculating, hesitated long before assenting to the request of Cabot. The latter hov- 
ered about the court for many weeks; but at length the envy of the King, jealous of the 
great things which had been accomplished under the banners of Castile and Leon, pre. 
vailed over his narrow and parsimonious spirit; and on the 5th of May, 1496, he issued a. 

(67) 



68 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



charter to John Cabot "mariner, of Venice," granting him privilege and authority to make 
discoveries and explorations in the Atlantic and Indian oceans, to carrj^ the English flag 
and to take possession of all islands and continents which he might discover. The 
Expenses of the expedition were to be borne by the three merchants of Bristol; but one- 
fifth of all the profits gained by the expedition should be given to the Crown. 

DISCOVERV OF NORTH AMERICA BV CABOT. 

The months of the following autuuin and winter were spent in preparations for the 
voyage. A fleet of five vessels was prepared and provisioned ; but only one ship, a small 
caravel called the Matthczi\ carrying a crew of eighteen men under the immediate com- 
mand of Cabot sailed on the expedition. Among the crew were John Cabot's three sons, 
Lewis, Sebastian and Santius. The Matthew left Bristol in the latter part of April and 
after a tempestuous voyage reached the coast of Labrador in the latitude of 56 degrees 
north, on St. John's Day, the 24th of June, 1497. This was the real discovery of North 
America. Indeed, it was the true discovery of the American continents, for nearly four- 
teen months elapsed before Columbus himself touched the mainland on the Gulf of Paria. 
More than two }-ears passed 
before Ojeda and Vespucci 
traced the shore of South 
America. 

Although it was the 
season of midsummer, Cabot 
found the countrj' which he 
had discovered to be ice- 
bound and wrapped in the 
solitude of an apparently per- 
petual winter. The coast was 
forbidding. A few wretcluil 
natives ran down to see the 
ship which appeared to them 
a prodig)' of the sea. The 
commander attempted to open communications with the natives, but it is believed that no 
landing was made. The shore line was explored, however, for several hundred miles. 
Cabot supposed that he had found the kingdom of the Grand Khan of Tartary; but 
neither the character of the countrj' nor the appearance of the natives warranted the 
conclusion. 

Before setting sail for England the navigator went on shore, and according to the tenns of 
his commission planted the flag of England and took possession in the name of the English 
King. The tradition runs that by the side of the flag of his adopted countr}-, Cabot also 
set up the banner of his native land, the Republic of Venice; nor will fancy fail to 
discover in the event the auspicious omen of a far-off day of greatness when the flag of 
another and greater Republic should wave from sea to sea. 

The good ship Malthezv returned to Bristol on the 6th of August, 1497. From the 
dates we may easily discover the brevity of the voyage. Twice on the right hand the coast 
of Newfoundland was seen. After a little more than three months of absence the captaia 
and his crew came safely to shore. Bristol had her holiday. The Admiral Cabot was received 
with rejoicing. An entry in the private accounts of Henry VII. for the loth of August, 
1497, is as follows : " For him that found the new isle, ten pounds." But the reports of 




JOHN CABOT LAUDING ON THE 
SHORES OF LABRADOR. 



EPOCH OF DISCOVERY AND PLANTING. 69 

the event are meagre, and we are left to conjecture with respect to much that followed. At 
the present time an ancient manuscript is preserved in a book shop in Bristol in which a 
brief announcement is made of the safe return of the Mattheiv and of the discover}' by 
Cabot of a new country beyond the Atlantic. 

The cautious King at length issued a new commission more liberal than the first and 
the same was signed in February of 1498. New ships were fitted and new crews enlisted 
for a second voyage. Strange as it may seem, after the date of this second patent the very 
name of John Cabot disappears from the annals of the times. Where the remainder of his 
life was passed and the circumstances of his death are involved in complete mystery. 

DISCOVERIES OF SEBASTIAN CABOT. 

But Sebastian Cabot, second of his father's sons, had inherited not only the plans and 
reputation of the latter, but also his genius. Indeed the }-ounger Cabot appears through 
the shadows of four centuries as a man of greater capacity and enterprise than his father. 
As we have said the younger Cabots accompanied the elder on his famous first voyage. 
Sebastian now took up the cause with all the fervor of youth. It is probable that the same 
fleet, the equipment of which had been begun for the father, was intrusted to the son. 
However this may be, Sebastian in the spring of 1498 found himself in command of a 
squadron of well-manned vessels and on his way to the new continent. But the new conti- 
nent was still supposed to be that India which had been the dream of navigators and 
cosmographers for many generations. The particular object of Sebastian was the common 
folly of the times, namely, the discovery of a northwest passage across the Atlantic to the 
Indies. 

At the close of the fifteenth century nothing was known about the general character of 
the great ocean currents which so largely modify the temperature of the seas and lands. 
Navigators had no notion of the great difference in climate of the parts of Europe and 
America situated on the same parallels of latitude. The humidity and comparative warmth 
of Great Britain were naturally supposed to exist in the new lands at a corresponding dis- 
tance from the equator. It remained for the Cabots to discover the much greater rigor of 
the climate on the western shores of the north Atlantic. The \'oyage of Sebastian proceeded 
prosperously until he reached the seas west of Greenland. Here he was obliged by the ice- 
bergs to change his course. 

It was now July and the sun scarcely set at midnight. Seals were seen in abundance 
and the ships ploughed through such shoals of codfish as had never before been heard of. 
The shore of Labrador was reached not far from the scene of the elder Cabot's discoveries. 
Then the fleet turned southward, but whether across the Gulf of St. Lawrence or to the 
east of Newfoundland is uncertain. New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and the coast of Maine 
were successively explored. The whole shore line of New England and of the ]\Iiddle 
States was now for the first time since the days of the Norsemen seen and traced by Euro- 
peans. Nor did Cabot desist from this work which was bestowing the title of discovery on 
the Crown of England until he had passed beyond the Chesapeake. After all the disputes 
about the matter it is most probable that Cape Hatteras is the point from which Sebastian 
began his homeward voyage. 

It was in this manner that the right of England to the better parts of North America 
was first declared. The "right" in question may be strongly criticised by posterity, as it 
rested wholly upon the fact oi first viezv by a company of English sailors looking shoreward 
from their vessels in the summer of 1498. But this first view was called discovery, and the 



70 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Christian kings of Europe had agreed among themselves that discovery should hold — that 
it should constitute a right which they would nnitually respect and defend. In this com- 
pact not the slightest attention was paid to the rights of possession and occupanc)' enjoyed 
for unknown generations b)- the native peoples of the new lands. All the clainiB of the 
aboriginal races were brushed aside as not of the slightest consequence or validity. The 
flag of Tudor had been carried in a ship along the coast from Labrador to Cape Hatteras, 
and English sailors had seen the New World before any of their European rivals; there-j 
fore England had a right to the possession of the continent thus " discovered !" \ 

As for Sebastian Cabot himself, his future career was as strange as the voyages of his 
boyhood had been wonderful. The dark-minded, illiberal Henrj' VII., although quick 
to appreciate the value of Cabot's discoveries, was slow to reward the discoverer. He, as 
well as all the Tudor kings who succeeded him, was a scheming and selfish prince. When 
Henry VIII. died, Ferdinand the Catholic enticed Sebastian Cabot away from England and 
made him Pilot-major of Spain. While holding this high office he had for a season almost 
supreme control of the maritime affairs of the kingdom and sent out many successful 
voyages. He lived to be very old, but the circumstances of his death have not been ascer- 
tained, and the place of his burial is unknown to tliis da)'. 

DA GAMA DISCOVERS A ROUTF. TO INDIA. 

We may here pause to note the rapid uufoldings of discovery in the last years of the 
fifteenth century. The true concept of the world came with 1498. That year may be fixed 
upon as the most marked in the history of modem times. In the month of May, Vasco da 
Gama, of Portugal, succeeded in doubling the Cape of Storms, afterwards known as the 
Cape of Good Hope, and after a long and successful voyage reached Hindustan. We have 
just seen how in the same summer Sebastian Cabot traced the eastern coast of North 
America through more than twenty degrees of latitude, thus establishing for all future time 
tlie claims of England to what proved to be the better parts of the new continent. In 
August of the same year Columbus himself, now sailing on his third voyage, reached the 
mainland of South America not far from the mouth of the Orinoco. Destiny had decreed 
that of these three great discoveries that of Cabot should prove to be most important in 
practical results. 

A strange obstacle, however, interposed itself for a while in the way of English dis- 
covery. In the first place it may be doubted whether the Tudor kings, from Henry VII. to 
Elizabeth, were much concerned about the character and possibilities of the New World. 
Henry VIII. during his rcigii of nearly forty years was occupied with the domestic affairs 
of his kingdom and with those threatening foreign intrigues which resisted, as their ulterior 
object, the growth and greatness of England. Meanwhile, as soon as America was discov- 
ered the kings of Spain and Portugal began to contend for what the first had found and the 
second had neglected to find. Pope Alexander VI. was called in to settle the dispute, and 
in 1493 did so by issuing the famous bull whereby an imaginary line was drawn north and 
south in the Atlantic three hundred miles west of the Azores, and all the islands and coun- 
tries west of that meridian given to Spain. Thus by a stroke of the pen about three-, 
fourths of the human race, including tlieir countries and cities, were handed over to 
Ferdinand the Catliolic as if they had been a basket of figs presented to a friend ! 

The Pope, taking advantage of the turmoils, wars and cross-purposes of Europe, had 
risen to such power that crowned heads bowed before him. Hcnn,'VIII., always contending 
that he himself was the truest of Catholics, was little disposed to dispute the decision which 
the Pope had rendered during the reign of his father. For the time it appeared that Spain 



EPOCH OF DISCOVERY AND PLANTING. 



71 



and Portugal had succeeded, under the Papal sanction, in dividing the new islands and con- 
tinents between them. For this reason the claims which had originated with the discoveries 
of the Cabots were allowed to lie donnant. The right of the English king to hold and 
possess the long continental line between Newfoundland and Caiolina was not pressed by 
the first Tudor kings lest they should quarrel with the Pope. It was not until after the 
Reformation had been accomplished in England that the Papal decision came to be disre- 
garded and finally despised and laughed at. 

With the event of the Refonnation, which may be dated in the reign of Edward VI., 
came a revival of English maritime adventure. When the break with Rome was once final,! 
or seemed to be final, the decisions of the Pope relative to the rights of the various Euro- 
pean crowns were not likely to be much regarded by the ministers and advisers of young 
Edward. In the year 1548 that King's council voted a hundred pounds sterling to induce 
the now aged Sebastian Cabot to quit Spain and become Grand Pilot of England. The old 

Admiral yielded to the temptation, left Seville, and once 
more sailed under the English flag. The omens were aus- 
picious for the speedy recovery of whatever England had 
lost to her rival by the apathy and 
indecision of half a century. 

ENGLAND'S DIVORCE FROM ROME. 
But the reign of Edward VI. came 
suddenly to an end. To him succeeded 
his half-sister Mary, to whom history 
has given the unpleasing name of the 
Bloody Mary. The Catholic reaction 
set in with full force. England was 
bound to Spain as if she were an ap- 
panage by the marriage of her Queen to 
Philip II. Under such conditions it was 
out of the question that the power of 
England on the sea should be materially extended. With the accession of the princess 
Elizabeth, however, in the year 1558, a wonderful impulse was given to all enterprises 
which promised the aggrandizement of her kingdom. 

Elizabeth Tudor was a Protestant by necessity. Destiny had contrived it so before her 
birth. She had in her the nature and dispositions of a Catholic Princess ; but she had also 
the accumulated ambitions of the House of Tudor. The alternative was sharp before her. 
She must choose the one thing and reject the other. She must plant herself like adamant 
forever against Rome and become the impersonation of English Protestantism. For her to 
be a Catholic was not only to admit the invalidity of her mother's marriage to her father, 
the illegitimacy of her own birth, but also to cast to the winds all legal and rightful claims 
to the English Crown. By being a Protestant she could maintain the rightfulness of her 
father's first divorce, the lawfulness of her mother's marriage, and her own consequent 
claims to be a legitimate Princess of the line established by her grandfather. Thus by the 
contrivance of history England was broken away from the continental system, including 
allegiance to Rome, and was thus freed to pursue her course of insular consolidation and 
her career of foreign adventure. 

No sooner had the affairs of the kingdom been well established after the accession of 
Elizabeth than maritime enterprises began again to be prompted. The spirit of discovery 




THE FLEETT OF FROBISHER. 



72 PEOPLE'S HLSTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

found impersonation in that bold and skilful sailor, Martin Frobisher, of Doncaster, 
Without means himself to undertake an expedition into foreign seas, he received aid 
from Dudley, Earl of Warwick, who fitted out three small vessels and placed them 
under Frobisher's command, to go in search of the mythical northwest passage to India. 
Three-quarters of a century had not sufficed to destroy the fanatical notion of reaching the 
rich countries of the East by sailing around America to the north. 

' Frobisher departed from Deptford on the 8th of June, 1576. One of his ships was lost 
on the voyage. Another was terrified at the prospect and returned to England ; but the 
dauntless captain proceeded in the third far to the north and west, attaining a higher lati- 
tude than had ever before been reached by Europeans on the western shore of the Atlantic. 
About the sixtieth parallel he discovered the group of islands which lie in the mouth of 
Hudson's Strait. Still farther to the north he came to a large island which he — under the 
common delusion of the age — supposed to be the mainland of Asia. To this he gave the 
name of Meta Incognita. North of this island, in latitude sixty-three degrees and eight 
minutes, he entered the strait which has ever since borne his name, and then believing that 
he had found the open way to Asia, set sail for England. He carried home with him one 
of the natives called Esquimaux and a stone which was thought by the English refiners to 
contain particles of gold. 

ADVENTURES OF THE ENGLISH GOLD-HUNTERS. 

Great was the excitement in England. London was stirred to action. Queen Eliza- 
beth herself contributed one ship to the new fleet which in the month of May, 1577, de- 
parted for Meta Incognita. All these vessels were to come home laden with gold ! Strange 
and vicious delusion which for thousands of years has held dominion over the imaginations 
of men ! Frobisher's ships soon came among the icebergs of the far North, and there for 
weeks together they were in imminent danger of being crushed between the floating moun- 
tains. The summer was cold and unfavorable for discover)-. The fleet did not succeed in 
reaching the same high point which Frobisher had gained in his single vessel in the previous 
summer. The sailors were alarmed at the gloomy perils of sea and shore and availed them- 
selves of the first opportunity to escape from these dangerous waters and return to England. 

But this unfruitful experience did not sufiice. The English gold-hunters were by no 
means satisfied. They regarded the return of the expedition as a cowardly failure to 
accomplish an enterprise which was already in sight. A third fleet of fifteen vessels strong 
and new was fitted out and Queen Elizabeth again contributed personally to the expense 
of the voyage. In the early spring of 1578 the squadron departed for the land of gold. 
It was the intention to plant there a colony of diggers. Some were to remain, others to 
return with the fleet. Twelve ships were expected to come back freighted with gold-ore 
to London. 

But the third summer was as severe as the others. At the entrance to Hudson Strait 
the floating icebergs were so thick that the ships could not be steered among them. For 
a long time the vessels were buSeted about in constant peril of destruction. At last they 
succeeded in reaching Meta Incognita and .soon gathered their cargoes of — dirt ! The 
provision ship slipped away from the fleet and returned to England. The aflairs of the 
expedition grew desperate. The northwest passage was forgotten. The colony which was 
to be planted was no longer thought of. Faith in the .shiploads of mica and dirt which 
they had gathered in the holds gave away; and so with disappointed crews and several 
tons of the spurious ore under the hatches the ships set sail for home. The Eldorado of 
the Esquimaux had proved to be an utter delusion. 



EPOCH OF DISCOVERY AND PLANTING. 



75 



THE PIRACIES OF DRAKE. 

After the death of Queen Mary the break between England and Spain became ever 
more ominous. The hostility between the two powers amounted almost to constant war. 
Even when the Spanish and English crowns were nominally at peace and when Philip and 
Elizabeth were exchanging the hypocritical compliments of princes a state of secret 
enmity existed, which on the sea at least showed itself in many acts of violence and rob- 
bery. It was at this time that the great English Admiral, Sir Francis Drake, sought for- 
tune by privateering. Without much regard for the law of nations he began, about 1572, 
to prey upon the merchant ships of Spain and gained thereby enonnous wealth. Five 
years later, following the route of Magellan, he sailed around to the Pacific coast and 
became a terror to the Spanish vessels in those waters. He greatly enriched himself and 




CROWNING OF DRAKE AS IHE; KING OF CALIFORNIA. 

his crews by a process not very different from piracy. But satisfied at length with this 
fonn of marauding, he formed the project of tracing up the western coast of North America 
until he should find perchance the northwest passage at its Pacific mouth, hoping to sail 
thence eastward around our continent. 

With this object in view, Drake followed the Pacific coast as far north as Oregon, dis- ' 
covering San Francisco harbor on the way, where he built a fort, spent the winter and was 
crowned King by native Indians. But his sailors who had now been for several years 
within the tropics began to shiver with the cold, and the enterprise which in any event must 
have ended in failure was given up. Sailing southward the navigator passed the winter of 
1579-80 in a harbor on the coast of Mexico. To all that portion of the western shores of 
America which he had thus explored he gave the name of New Albion; but the earlier 



74 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



discovery of the same coast by the Spaniards had rendered the English claim of but little 
value. Thus far no pennanent colony of Englishmen had been established in the New World. 

Among the first to conceive a rational plan of colonizing America was Sir Humphrey 
Gilbert. This remarkable personage had already produced a treatise on tlie possibility of 
finding a northwest passage to India, which work is said to have been the inspiring cause 
of the voyages of Frobisher. 
The results had not equalled 
expectation, and Gilbert began 
to brood over the notion of 
establishing somewhere on the 
shores of the new continent 
an agricultural and commercial 
State. If the hopes of finding 
gold had been thus far de- 
lusive, certainly the hope of 
agriculture and commerce 
would not so prove. Sir 
Humphrey brought his views 
to the attention of the Queen 
and sought her aid. Elizabeth 
received his propositions favor- 
ably and issued to him a liberal 
patent authorizing him to take 
possession of any six hundred 
square miles of unoccupied 
territory in America, and to 
plant thereon a colony of whicl 
he himself should be pro- 
prietor and governor. 

With this commission Sir 
Humphrey Gilbert, assisted by 
his illustrious step-brother, 
Walter Raleigh, prepared a 
fleet of five vessels and in 
June of 1583 sailed for the 
west. Only two days after 
their departure the best vessel 
,in the fleet treacherously aban- 

{doued the rest and returned ^^''^ ewzabeth. 

to Plymouth. Gilbert, however, continued his voyage and early in August reached 
Newfoundland. There he went on .shore and took formal possession of the country 
in the name of his sovereign. Unfortunately some of the sailors discovered in the side 
of the hill scales of mica and the judge of metals whom Gilbert had been unwise 
enough to bring with him declared that the glittering mineral was silver ore. The crews 
became at once insubordinate. Some went to digging the supposed silver and carn,-ing it 
on board the vessels while others gratified their piratical propensities by attacking tb« 
Spanish and Portuguese ships that were engaged in codfishing in the neighboring waters. 




EPOCH OF DISCOVERY AND PLANTING. 75 

DEATH OF SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT. 

In a short time it was found that one of Gilbert's vessels was unfit for sea. This ship 
was abandoned, but with the other three Sir Humphrey left Newfoundland and steered for 
the south. Off the coast of Massachusetts the largest of the remaining ships was wrecked 
and the whole crew and cargo, consisting of a hundred men and a great amount of spurious 
silver t-re, went to the bottom. The disaster was so great that Gilbert gave up the expedition 
and s^t sail for England. 

The weather had now become stormy and the two ships that remained were unfit for 
nav/gation in such rough waters. Sir Humphrey's ship, which was the weaker of the two, ' 
was a little frigate called the Squirrel. This he had chosen m order that the other crew 
might have the advantage in the attempt to return to England. Both vessels were shattered 
and leaking. The storm howled around them. At midnight when the ships were within 
hailing distance of each other, but out of sight, the raging sea rose between them and the 
Squirrel was suddenly engulfed. Not a man of the courageous crew was saved. * The 
ether ship finally reached Falmouth in safety. 

It would appear that these reverses and disasters rather quickened the ambitions than 
aroused the fears of Sir Walter Raleigh. In the following spring that remarkable man 
obtained from the Queen a new patent fully as liberal as the one granted to Gilbert. The 
scheme now embraced a fonn of government for an American colony. Sir Walter was to 
be the Lord Proprietary of an extensive tract of country extending from the thirty-third to 
the fortieth parallel of north latitude. The territory was to be held in the name of the 
■Queen. A State was to be organized and peopled by emigrants from England. 

The character of the northern seas and coasts had now been sufliciently revealed to turn 
the attention of explorers to a more hospitable region. The frozen North was henceforth 
avoided. The sunny country extending from Cape Fear to the Delaware was to be chosen 
as the seat of the rising empire. A squadron of two ships was fitted out to forerun the 
enterprise, the command being given to Philip Amidas and Arthur Barlow. The first of 
these was a sea captain from Hull and the second of unknown origin, but distinguished as 
a navigator. 

The expedition left England on the 27th of April, 1784. The ships touched first at 
the Canaries and then the West Indies, from which point they made the coast of Carolina. 
It was on the 13th of July that they entered Ocracoke inlet. The coast was found to be 
long and low, the sea smooth and glassy. The woods were full of beauty and song. The 
journal of Barlow is filled with exclamations of delight. The sailors seemed "as if they 
had been in the midst of some delicate garden. ' ' The natives were found to be generous 

* The fate of Sir Humphrey Gilbert has been embalmed in song by Longfellow: 

"In the first watch of the night 
Without a signal's sound, 
• Out of the sea mysteriously 

The fleet of Death rose all around. 

"Southward through day and dark 
They drift in close embrace, 
With mist and rain o'er the open main ; 
Yet there seems no change of place. 

"Southward, forever southward 

They drift through dark and day ; 
And like a dream in the Gulf-stream 
Sinking, vanish all away." 



76 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



and hospitable. E.Kplorations were made along the shores of Albemarle and Pamlico 
sounds and a landing finally effected on Roanoke Island, where the English were entertained 
by the Indian queen. Neither Amidas nor Barlow, hov.'ever, had the genius necessary for 
the prosecution of so great an enterprise. After a stay of less than two months they return d 
to England to exhaust the rhetoric of description in praising the beauties of the new land. 
In allusion to her own life and reign Elizabeth gave to her delightful country in the New 
World the name of Virgini.\. I 

Sil Walter Raleigh now carried his enterprise to Parliament. In December of 1 584 h» 
secured the passage of a bill by which his former patent was confirmed and enlarged. By 
this means he secured public attention. The mind of the people was turned more than 
hitherto to the project 
of emigration. It was 
perceived by many that 
Sir Walter's proposed 
province in the New 
World offered the 
greatest inducements 
to emigrants and 
adventurers. The plan 
of colonization was ac- 
cordingly taken up 
anew with zeal and 
earnestness. The Lord 
Proprietary soon fitted 
out a second expedi- 
tion. He appointed the 
soldierly Sir Ralph 
Lane to be governor of 
the colony and gave 
the command of his 
fleet to Sir Richard 
Grenville. Sir Ralph 
family and had been 




RUINS OF THB ENGLISH SETTLEMENT 
AT ROANOKE. 



was connected with the royal 
in the sen'ice of Mary and 
Elizabeth for more than twenty years. Sir Richard 
was a navigator from Cornwall, had been a soldier, a 
civil ofiicer, a member of Parliament and finally a knight under patent from Queen Elizabeth, 
He was a cousin to Raleigh, and embarked eagerly in the project of colonization. 

FOUNDING OF THE FIRST SETTLEMENT IN AMERICA. 

As for emigrants, tlicy were made up to a considerable extent of the adventurous and 
fallant young nobility of the kingdom. The fleet consisted of seven vessels. The voyage' 
extended from the 9th of April to the 20th of June, when the shore of Carolina was reached 
in safety. Soon afterwards a storm arose and the whole squadron was in imminent danger 
of destruction — a peril which suggested to Grenville the naming of Cape Fear, which the 
outjutting coast has borne to the present day. 

Escaping from the storm, the vessels six days afterwards came to Roanoke. Here it 
was determined to plant the colony. A hundred and eight men were landed and organized 



EPOCH OF DISCOVERY AND PLANTING. 



77 



under Governor Lane. For several days explorations were made in the neighborhood. 
One of the Indians ignorantly took away a silver cup, whereupon Sir Richard laid waste 
the fields of maize and burned an Indian town. He then set sail for England, taking with 
him a Spanish treasure-ship which he had captured in the West Indies. Privateering and 
colonization went hand in hand. 

The Indians were enraged at the cruelties of the white men. The spirit of gentleness 
■which they had hitherto displayed towards the Europeans gave place to jealousy, suspicioa 
and hatred. Lane and some of his companions v/ere enticed with false stories to go on a 
gold-hunting expedition into the interior. Their destruction was planned, and only avoided 
by a hasty retreat to Roanoke, Virginia. The Indian King and several of his chiefs were now 
in turn allured into the power of the English and inhumanly murdered. Ferocity and 
gloom followed this crime ; then despondency and a sense of danger, until the discourage- 




MASSACRE OF SETTLERS AT ROANOKE. 

ment became so great that when Sir Francis Drake, returning with a fleet from his exploits 
on the Pacific coast, came in sight the colonists prevailed on him to carry them back to 
England. 

^ It was thus by the cupidity, injustice and crime of the Whites done on the unoffending 
natives that the chasm of hostility was opened between the English-speaking race and the 
aborigines of North America. Nor have three hundred years sufficed to bridge over the 
abyss ! The event soon showed that the abandonment of the colony had been needless and 
hasty. Within a few days a shipload of stores arrived from the prudent Raleigh, but the 
captain found no colony. The vessel, therefore, could do nothing but return. Two weeks 
later Sir Richard Grenville came in person to Roanoke with three well laden ships and 
made a fruitless search for his colonists. All were gone. Not to lose possession of the 
country altogether, the governor left fifteen men on the island and set sail for home. 



78 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED vSTATES. 

MASSACRE OF THE ENGLISH AT ROANOKE. 

The general result in England was discouraging. The ardor of the people cooled when 
It was known that the enterprise had ended in failure. Nevertheless tnithful descriptions 
of the magnificent coast of Virginia and Carolina had now been published and it was only 
a question of time when the spirit of enterprise and adventure would revive. Sir Walter 
himselr did nmch to promote and encourage emigration. A new company of coloi.'sts con- 
sisting largely of families was made up, and a new charter of municipal government was 
granted by the Proprietary'. John White was chosen governor, and everj' precaution was 
taken to secure the success of the City of Raleigh soon to be founded in the West. 

In April of 1587 the new fleet departed from England and in the following July ar- 
rived in Carolina. The dangerous Capes of Hatteras and Fear were avoided and the ships 
came safely to Roanoke. A search was made for the fifteen men who had been left there 
the year before ; but the sequel showed that they had been murdered by the now hostile 
Indians. Nevertheless Captain White selected the northern extremit}' of the ill-omened 
island as the cite for his " city " and on the 23d of July the foundations were laid. 

But fortune was still adverse to the enterprise. The new settlers and the Indians 
renewed their hostilities and went to war. After some destruction of life peace was con- 
cluded, and Sir Walter conceived the plan of uniting the fortunes of the two races by a 
common interest. He accordingly gave his sanction to a project which, as the events 
showed, was sufficiently absurd. The Indian king of Roanoke was Manteo. Him Sir 
Walter selected as the link of union between the English and the natives. ^lanteo waa 
recognized as one of the rulers of the land, and was made a peer of England with the title 
of Lord of Roanoke ! Of course no salutary results could follow such a piece of silliness 
and misapprehension. 

Notwithstanding the presence of their copper-colored nobleman, the colonists continued 
to be gloomy and apprehensive. They pretended to fear starvation. In the latter part of 
August they became half-mutinous and almost compelled the governor to return to England 
for additional supplies and new immigrants. The governor, in a mistaken spirit, yielded to 
the pressure and sailed away. Had the colonists been content to employ the summer in 
nseful labor — in planting and gathering and preparation — they might have easily provided 
themselves against the exigency of winter. But they imagined that their stores must be 
constantly replenished from abroad, and the spirit of independence was thus destroyed. 

An incident of these days was the birth of the first-born of English children in the 
New World. They gave to the babe the name of Virginia Dare, and her birthday, the i8th 
of August, was recorded as a date to be remembered. The colony had fair prospects for the 
future, and when White set sail for England he left the immigrants, a hundred and eight in 
number, in full expectation of ultimate success. What their fate was, however, has never 
been ascertained. The stor}' of their going ashore and joining the Indians is unlikely in 
itself and has no historical evidence to support it. 1 

Great was the disturbance which now prevailed in England. From a European point 
of new it might well seem doubtful whether the House of Tudor could longer hold the 
throne, or indeed whether the English monarchy could sun-ive the coming ordeal. Foi the 
Invincible Armada of Spain was now bearing down upon the English coasts. All the 
resources and energies of the realm were demanded for defence. Although Sir Walter 
managed to send out two supply-ships to succor his star\'ing colony, his efforts to reach 
them were unavailing. The vessels which he despatched for that pui-pose went cruising 
after Spanish merchantmen, and were themselves nm down and captured by a man-of-war. 




i 

s 



iS 






n 

H 

«■ 

<! 
Q 

< 

s 



s 



(79) 



8o 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



Not until the spring of 1590 did Governor White finally return to search for the unfortunate 
colonists. The island was a desert, teuautless and silent No soul remained to tell the 
•tory of the lost 

By this time Sir Walter had expended two hundred thousand dollars of his own means 
in the attempt to found and foster a colouy in America. Not able to prosecute the enter- 
prise further, he gave it up aud assigned his proprietary rights to an association of London 
merchants. It was under the auspices of these that Governor White had made his final search 




CAPTURE OF THE ENGLISH SUPPLY SHIPS BV SPANISH CRUISERS. 

fcr the settlers of Roanoke. The result bore so much of discouragement that during the 
la.st decade of the sixteenth century the effort at American colonization was not renewed. 
It was not until the year 1602 that maritime enterprise in the direction of America was 
again promoted under the flag of England. Bartholomew Gosnold was the man to whom 
belongs the honor of renewing the work and of carrying a successful expedition to om 
■bores. 



EPOCH OF DISCOVERY AND PLANTING. 8i 

GOSNOLD'S EFFORTS TO COLONIZE NEW ENGLAND. 

More than a century had now elapsed since the discovery of the Western Hemisphere by 
Columbus and the Cabots. During all this time the old route first taken from Europe to 
America had continued to be followed by the navigators of England, Spain and France. 
This route was verj' circuitous. Ships from the western parts of Europe sailing for Amer- 
ica voyaged first southward to the Canar}' Islands, thence to the West Indies, and thence 
northward to the coast line of our continent. Abandoning this path as unnecessarily long 
and out of the way, Gosnold in a single small vessel called the Concord sailed directly 
across the Atlantic and in seven weeks reached the coast of Maine. The distance thus 
gained was fully two thousand miles and the demonstration was another evidence that th£ 
Atlantic was no longer to constitute an impassable barrier between the Old World and 
the New. 

Like his predecessors, Gosnold contemplated the founding of a colony, and with this 
end in view he brought with him to America a company of emigrants; but the selection 
of a site for his proposed settlement was difficult and for several weeks he continued to 
explore from the coast of Maine southward. Capes Elizabeth and Cod were reached and 
at the latter place the captain with four of his men went ashore. It was the first landing 
of Englishmen within the limits of New England. Cape Malabar was also passed, and 
the vessel was at lengch steered into Buzzard's Bay. Selecting the most westernly island 
of the Elizabeth group, the colonists debarked and there began the first New England 
settlement. 

But the work had been badly planned. The true instinct of colonization was want- 
ing. A traffic was opened with the natives and the Concord was laden with sassafras 
root, already known in Europe and greatly prized for its fragrance and its supposed virtues 
in healing. For a season the affairs of the immigrants went well; but when the ship was 
about to depart for England the settlers became alarmed at the prospect before them and 
prevailed on Gosnold to take them back to their friends at home. Thus the island was 
abandoned and the Concord returned to England. 

Although failure followed failure, the accounts which the sailors and colonists invari- 
ably gave of the American shores were filled with praises and notes of astonishment. 
Interest was thus kept alive in the mother country' and one expedition quickly succeeded 
to another. The next squadron of discovery and settlement was fitted out for Martin Pring. 
Two vessels called the Speedwell and the Discovei-er were loaded with merchandise suited 
to the tastes of the Indians, and in April of 1603, a few days after the death of Queen 
Elizabeth the little fleet sailed for America. They came safely to Penobscot Bay and after- 
wards explored the harbors and shores of Maine. The coast of Massachusetts was 
traced southward to the sassafras region, where Pring loaded his ships at Martha's Vineyard 
and thence returned to England. The two vessels reached Bristol in safety after an absence 
of about six months. 

It seems that at this time the idea of trade almost superseded the notion of coloniza* 
tion. The English voyagers came one after another, loaded their ships and either left 
certain of their companions to perish or took the intended immigrants back to England. 
The purpose of planting was for a while feeble and uncertain. In 1605 George Waymouth, 
under the patronage of the Earl of Southampton, made a voyage to America and came to 
anchorage among the Islands of St. George on the coast of Maine. He explored the har- 
bor and sailed up the outflowing river for a considerable distance, noting the fine forests 
of fir and the beauty of the scenery. He also opened a trade with the Indians, some of 
6 



82 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



whom learned to speak a broken English, and were persuaded by him to visit England. 
The home-bound voyage was safely made, the vessels reaching Plymouth about the middle 
of June. This was the last of the trial voyages made by English navigators preparator>- to 
the actual establishment of an American colony. 

In these movements, extending from the middle of the sixteenth to the first decade of 
the seventeenth century, the reader may easily discover the prevailing and ever-recurring 
features of English progress. It is the peculiarity of the race that it does everything by 
tentative stages. The epoch of which we speak was experimental. The English race 
seemed to touch and handle the coast of America as if to test its qualities and possibilities. 
The expeditions seemed to be characterized by timidity and caution. It were hard to dis- 
cover any other reason than the fundamental character of English enterprise and method 
for the fact that the navigators of Britain were so long in getting a foothold in the New 
World. Spanish enterprise was marked with dash and boldness. True there was in it 
much of the impractical, much of the Quixotical spirit. But the English mariners and first 
emigrants seemed a/raid of the New World, though they longed to possess it. We shall 
see hereafter that when once the men who spoke English had obtained a footing in Virginia 
and New England they held it with a persistency equal to the caution which they had dis- 
played in making their first settlements. 





CHAPTER IV. 

VOYAGES OF THE FRENCH AND DUTCH. 

IFFICULT is it to say precisely at what date the Frenck 
sea captains first attempted to follow the pathway 
of Columbus and Cabot across the Atlantic. It is 
certain that the Government of France was in a con- 
dition at the close of the fifteenth century to patron- 
ize and encourage such adventures as had given a 
New World to Castile and Leon. Certain it is also 
that not many years elapsed after the West Indies 
and mainland of the new continents were revealed 
to Europe before the French were abroad at sea, 
seeking to share in the treasures of discovery. 
France was very willing to profit by what the man 
of Genoa and the man of Venice had done for the 
world. 
As early as 1504 the fishennen of Normandy and Brittany began 
to ply their craft on the banks of Newfoundland. A map of the Gulf 
of St. Lawrence was drawn by a Frenchman in the year 1506. Two years afterwards a 
French ship carried home for the astonishment of the court of Louis XII. some of the Ameri- 
can Indians, and in 1518 the project of colonizing the New World was fonnally taken up 
by Francis I. In 1523 the first voyage of discovery and exploration was planned and 
Giovanni Verrazzano, a native of Florence, was appointed to conduct the expedition. The 
particular thing to be accomplished was the discovery of the supposed northwest passage to 
Asia. 

It was near the end of 1523 that Verrazzano left Dieppe, on the frigate Dolphin, to 
begin his voyage. He reached the Madeira islands, but did not depart thence until January 
of the following year. The weather was unfavorable, the sailing difficult, and it required 
fifty-five days of hard struggle against wind and wave to bring him to the American coast. 
This he reached in the latitude of Wilmington. Coasting thence northward, he discovered 
New York and Narragansett bays. At intervals he made landings and opened traffic with 
the natives. The Indians were found to be gentle and confiding. A Frenchman who was 
washed ashore by the surf was treated by them with great kindness and was pennitted to 
return to the ship. 

\ On the coast of Rhode Island, perhaps in the vicinity of Newport, Verrazzano anchored 
for fifteen days and there continued his trade with the natives. Before leaving the place, 
however, the French sailors repaid the confidence of the Indians by kidnapping a child and 
attempting to steal away one of the maidens of the tribe. After this the expedition was 
continued along the broken line of New England for a great distance. The Indians in this 
part of the country were wary and suspicious. They would buy neither ornaments nor 
toys, but were eager to purchase knives and weapons of iron. Passing to the east of Nova 

(83) 



84 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 






i -%. 



Scotia, the bold navigator reached Newfoundland in the latter part of May, taking posses- 
sion in the name of his king. On his return to Dieppe, in July of 1524, he wrote for 
Francis I. a rather rambling account of his discoveries. His work, however, was recog- 
nized by the sovereign, and the name of New France was given to that part of our con- 
tinent the coast line of which had been traced by the adventurous crew of the Dolphin. 

The condition of affairs in Europe at the close of the first quarter of the sixteenth 
centun- was unfavorable in the last degree for carr\'ing forward the work of discovery and 
colonization abroad. The Reformation had broken out in Germany. Three great mon- 
archs, Francis I. of France, Henry VHI. of England and Charles V. of Spain and Gennany, 
loomed up to a kingly stature that had not been hitherto attained since the days of Charle- 
mag::e. Mutual jealousy supervened among them. Each watched the other two with 
ill-concealed animosity and dread. On the whole, Francis I. and his government suffered 
most in the contest of cross-purposes which held all things in its meshes. Ten years 
elapsed after the discoveries and explorations of Verrazzano before *_^>t 

another expedition could be sent out from France. In 1534, ^^ '^v^t--^ 

however, Phillippe de Chabot, of Poitou, Admiral of the kingdom, "^y- *'^^^^ 

selected Jacques, or James, Cartier, a sea-captain of St. Malo, in ■*'- ■-'- *^ -.wi,- -^ -..^^x 
Brittany, to make a new voyage to America. Two ships were 
equipped for the enterprise, and after no more than twenty days 
of .sailing* under cloudless skies came 
to anchor on the loth of May off the 
coast of Newfoundland. By the 
middle of July Cartier had circum- 
navigated the island, crossed the giilf 
of St. Lawrence and found the bay 
of Chaletirs. 

VOYAGES OF JAMES CARTIER. 

Like his predecessors, Cartier 
had expected to discover somewhere 
in those waters a passage westward 
to Asia. Disappointed in this hope, 
he changed his course to the north 
and followed the coast as far as Gaspe 
Bay. Here upon the point of land 
he set up the cross, bearing a shield 
with the lily of France, and proclaimed the French king monarch of the countn,-. Follow- 
ing his explorations, he next entered the estuary and river vSt. Lawrence. Thinking it 
impracticable, however, to pass the winter in the New World, Cartier turned his prows 
toward France and in thirty days reached St. Malo in safety. 

The news of this voyage and its results produced great excitement As had been the 
case in England, the young nobility of France became ambitious to seek fortune in the New 
World. Another squadron of three vessels was fitted out and many men of high rank joined 
the expedition. The sails were spread by zealous hands and on the 19th of May, 1535, the 
new voyage was begun. In this instance, however, stormy weather prevailed on the 

• So sa}' all the authorities, but it is incredible that a rude ship of the early part of the sixteenth century should 
cross the Atlantic in twenty days. The Author suggests that the error in the calendar, then amounting to nine or 
ten days, should be added to the twenty of the books. 




-A 



CARTIER ON THE SUMMIT OF MONT REAL, NOW MONTREAI.. 



EPOCH OF DISCOVERY AND PLANTING. 



85 



Atlantic and Newfoundland was not reached until the loth of August. It was the day of 
St. Lawrence and the name of that martyr was accordingly given to the gulf and river. 
The expedition proceeded up the noble stream to the island of Orleans where the ships 
were moored in a place of safety. 

Two Indians whom Cartier had taken with him to France now gave information that 
higher up the river there was an important town on an island called in the native tongue 
Hochelaga. Cartier proceeding in his boats found it as the natives had said. A beautiful 
village lay at the foot of a high hill in the middle of the island. Climbing to the top of 
the hill and viewing the scene, Cartier named the island and town Mont Real — a name 
which has been transmitted to history by the city of Montreal. The country' was declared 
to belong ' ' by the right of discovery ' ' to the King of France, and then the boats dropped 
down the river to the ships. During the winter that ensued twenty-five of Cartier' s meu 
were swept off by the scurvy, a malady hitherto unknown in Europe. 

Other hardships came with the season. 



Snows and excessive cold prevailed for 
months together. Unaccustomed to the 
rigors of such terrible weather, the 
French sailors and colonists shrank from 
it, and their enthusiasm died out, so 
that with the coming of spring prepara- 
tions were made to return to France. 
The cross and shield and lily were 
again planted in the soil of the New 
World and the homeward voyage began. 
But before the ships left their anchorage 




the 



good king of the 



CARTIER ENTICING THE KING 
OF THE HURONS. 



Hurons who had 
treated Cartier and his men with 
great generosity, was enticed on 
shipboard and carried off to die a 
captive in the hands of the French. 
On the 6th of July the fleet reached 
to give of the new country and his 
discouragement. Neither silver nor 
What was a New World good 



St. Malo, but the accounts which Cartier was able 
experiences therein were such as to produce great 
gold had been found on the banks of the St. Lawrence, 
for that had not silver and gold ? 

After the return of Cartier there was another lull of five years. At length Francis de 
la Roque, Lord of Roberval, in Picardy, revived the project of planting a colony beyond the 
Atlantic. Following this purpose, he received from the court of France a commission to 
carry an expedition with emigrants to the country of the St. Lawrence. He was given the 
titles of Viceroy and Lieutenant-General of New France, and much other vain-glorious 
ceremony attended his preparations. Roberval was wise enough to avail himself of the 
experience and abilities of his predecessor. Cartier was retained in the service and was 
induced to conduct the new expedition with the titles of Chief Pilot and Captain-General. 

A COLONY OF DESPERATE CRIMINALS. 

We here reach one of the astonishing circumstances which have recurred time and again 
in the founding of distant States. The promoters of such enterprises find difficulty in 
securing a sufficient number of emigrants. Hereupon the government comes to the rescue 



86 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



with the offer to discharge its criminal classes through the vent of the colonial enterprise. 

Roberval made but little headway in collecting his colony, and appealed to the court for aid- 

The government responded by opening the prisons of the kingdom and giving freedom to 

whoever would join the expedition. There was a rush of robbers, swindlers and murderers, 

and the lists were immediately filled. Only counterfeiters and traitors were denied the 

privilege of gaining their liberty in the New World. 

The equipment of the squadron was completed, and the emigrant colony made up — for 

the most part of criminals and the refuse of French society. Five ships under the com- 
mand of Carticr left France in May of 1541, and reached the St. Lawrence in safety. The 

expedition proceeded to the present site 

of Quebec, where a fort was erected and 

named Charlesbourg. Here the colonists 

passed the winter. There was, however, 

neither peace nor promise of good. 

Cartier, offended at his subordinate 

position, was evidently willing that the 

enterprise should come to naught. He 

and Roberval were never of one opinion, 

and when the latter, in June of 1542, 

arrived at Quebec, bringing immigrants 

and supplies, Cartier secretly got 

together his own part of the squadnm 

and returned to Europe. Roberval fouiiil 

himself alone in New France with thrc < 

shiploads of criminals, some of whom 
had to be whipped and others hanged. 

During the autumn the vicero\', 
instead of laboring to establish his 
colony, spent his time in trjing to dis- 
cover the northwest passage. The winter 
was passed in gloom, despondency and 
suffering, and the following spring was 
welcomed by the colonists, for the op- 
portunity which it gave them of return- 
ing to France. Thus the enterprise 
which had been undertaken with so 
much pomp came to naught. In 1511) 
Sir Francis de la Roque again gathered 
a large company of emigrants and re- 
newed the project of colonization. The expedition departed under favorable omens, but 
the squadron was never heard of afterwards. 

Such was the effect of these failures and such the weakness of French adventures that 
a half-century now elapsed before the effort to colonize America was renewed by the Gov- 
ernment. Private enterprise, however, and religious persecution in the meantime worked 
together to accomplish in Florida and Carolina what the Government of France liad failed 
to accomplish on the St. Lawrence. For Protestantism had appeared in France, and had 
begun to suffer at the hands of the King and the Catholic Church. It was about the mid- 




ROBERVAL'S SEARCH FOR A NORTH-WhbT i'ASSAGii. 



EPOCH OF DISCOVERY AND PLANTING. 87 

die of the sixteenth century when the celebrated Gaspard de Coligni, leader of the French 
Huguenots, and now serving as Admiral of France, formed the design of establishing in 
America a refuge for his persecuted fellow-countrymen. It would appear that the Kino- was 
at this period not unwilling that the Huguenots should escape from the country to foreign 
lands. In 1562 Coligni obtained from Charles IX. the privilege of planting a French Pro- 
testant colony in the New World. John Ribault, of Dieppe, a brave and experienced cap- 
tain, was selected to lead the Huguenots to the land of promise. 

AN ASYLUM FOR THE PERSECUTED HUGUENOTS. 

A company of the exiles was soon collected. The squadron sailed away and reached 
the coast of Florida in safety. The river St. Johns was entered by the French, and named 
the River of May. The fleet then sailed northward to the entrance of Port Royal. The 
colonists were landed on an island, where a stone engraved with the arms of their native 
land was set up to mark the place. A fort was built and in honor of Charles IX. was 
named Carolina. Here Ribault left a garrison of twentj'-six men and returned to France 
for additional emigrants and supplies. Civil war, however, was now raging in the king- 
dom, and it was found impossible to procure the needed stores or other emigrants. Mean- 
while the men left in America became mutinous with long waiting, killed their leader, con- 
structed a rude brig and put to sea. For a long time they were driven at the mercy of the 
winds and waves, but were at last picked up, half starved, by an English ship and were 
carried back to France. 

Admiral Coligni, however, resolved to prosecute his enterprise. He planned a second 
colony and appointed as its leader Rene de L,audonniere. But the character of the second 
company of emigrants was bad. The event showed that they were for the most part aban- 
doned men, idle and improvident. The leader on reaching the American coast avoided the 
harbor of Port Royal, and chose the river St. Johns for the proposed colony. Here he built 
a fort, but the immigrants — the larger part — as soon as opportunity offered and acting under 
the pretence of an escape from famine, contrived to get possession of two of the ships and 
sailed away. Instead of returning to France, however, they took to piracy until they were 
caught, brought back and hanged. The rest of the settlers were on the eve of breaking up 
the colony when Ribault, who had commanded the first expedition, arrived from France 
with a cargo of supplies. It was at this juncture that the Spaniard, Melendez, discovering 
the whereabouts of the Huguenots and regarding them as intruders in the territory of Spain 
fell upon and destroyed the entire company. 

A DREADFUL VENGEANCE. 

The news of this atrocity created great sorrow and indignation among the Huguenots 
of France. Dominic de Gourges, a soldier of Gascony, prepared to avenge the death of his 
countrymen. He planned an expedition against the Spanish settlements in Florida and soon 
came down upon them with signal vengeance. His squadron was fitted at his own expense. 
With three ships and only fifty seamen he arrived in midwinter on the coast of Florida. 
With this handful he surprised successively the three forts on the river St. Johns and made 
prisoners of the garrisons. Then when he was unable to hold his position any longer he 
condemned and hanged his leading captives to the branches of trees, putting up this inscrip- 
tion to explain what he had done : ' ' Not Spaniards, but murderers. ' ' 

The sixteenth centur}' drew to a close. It was not until 1598 that the attention of the 
French Government was once more directed to the claims which the early navigators had 
established to portions of the American coast. In this year the Marquis de la Roche, a 



88 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



nobleman of influence and distinction, took up the cause and obtained a commission author- 
izing him to found an empire in the New World. Unfortunately the colony was again to 
be made up by opening the prisons and granting immunity to such of the inmates as would 
emigrate. The expedition soon reached Nova Scotia and anchored at Sable Island, a place 
of desolation and gloom. Here the Marquis left forty men to found the colony while he 
himself returned to France for a cargo of supplies. Soon after his arrival at home he died, 
and for seven dreary years the new French empire, composed of forty convicts, languished 
on Sable Island. At last they were mercifully picked up by passing ships and carried back 




III': COURGKS AVKNCING THK MURDKR OK THK HUGUKNOTS. 

to France. It was reckoned by the authorities that the punishment of the poor wretche* 
had been sufficient and they were never remanded to prison. 

At last, however, the time came when a permanent French colony should be established 
in America. In the year 1603 the Government of France granted the sovereignty of the 
country from the latitude of Philadelphia to one degree north of Montreal to the French 
Count, Pierre du Gua.st, commonly known as De Alonts. He received from the King a 
patent giving him a monopoly of the fur trade in the new country and conceding religious 
freedom for Huguenot immigrants. 



EPOCH OF DISCOVERY AND PLANTING. 89 

In March of the following }'ear De Monts sailed from France with two shiploads of 
colonists and reached the Bay of Fundy. The summer was spent in explorations and in 
trade with the Indians. At length Poutrincourt, captain of one of the ships, having dis- 
covered on the northwest coast of Nova Scotia an excellent harbor, obtained a grant of the 
lands adjacent and went ashore to plant a colony. The viceroy, with the remainder, crossed 
the bay and built a rude fort at the mouth of the river St. Croix. But in the following 
spring this place was abandoned and a company returned to the settlement of Poutrincourt. 
Here on the 14th of November, 1605, the foundations of the first pennanent French settle- 
ment in America were laid. The name of Port Royai, was given to the ford and harbor 
and the country was called Arcadia. 

Now it was that the famous Samuel Champlain appeared on the scene. Already he 
had justly earned the reputation of being one of the most soldierly men of his times. As 
early as 1603 he had been commissioned by a company of Rouen merchants to explore the 
country of the St. Lawrence and establish a trading-post. The discovery had at last been 
made that the abundant furs of these regions were a surer source of riches than impossible 
mines of gold and silver. 

The expedition of Champlain reached the St. Lawrence in safety, and the spot on which 
Quebec now stands was chosen as the site for a fort. In the autumn the leader returned to 
France and published a favorable account of his enterprise. It was not for five years, how- 
ever, namely in 1608, that Champlain succeeded in returning to America. On the 3d of 
July in that year the foundations of Quebec were laid. In 1609 the leader and two other 
French adventurers joined a company of the Hurons, then at war with the Iroquois of New 
York. On this expedition Champlain ascended the Sorel River until he discovered the 
narrow lake which has ever since borne his name. 

FIRST PERMANENT FRENCH SETTLEMENT. 

For three or four years the settlement at Quebec languished ; but in 161 2 the Protest- 
ant party in France came into power and Champlain was enabled by the favor of the great 
Conde, Protector of the Protestants, to prosecute his American enterprise. For the third 
time he returned to New France bringing with him a company of Franciscan friars to 
preach to the Indians. They and the Huguenots quarrelled not a little and Champlain a sec- 
ond time joined" the Indians. His company was defeated in battle and he himself, seriously 
wounded, was obliged to remain all winter among the Hurons. In the summer of 1617 he 
returned to the colony. Three years afterwards the foundation of the fortress of St. Louis 
was laid and in 1624 the structure was completed — a circumstance which secured the per- 
manence of the French settlements in the valley of the St. Lawrence. 

We have now followed with some care the lines of English exploration and French 
adventure down to the beginning of the seventeenth century. Let us in the next place 
note the efforts made by the people of Holland to gain a footing in the New World. The 
first Dutch settlement in America was made on Manhattan Island. The story of the plant- 
ing introduces to us one of the most remarkable men who left a name and impress on the 
primitive history of our country. This was no other than the illustrious Henry, or Hendrik, 
Hudson. By birth this great navigator was an Englishman. The year 1607 found him in 
the employ of a company of London merchants, by whom he was commissioned to traverse 
the North Atlantic and discover a route either eastward or westward to the Indies. 

On his first voyage, made in a single ship, Hudson endeavored to circumnavigate 
Europe to the north. He succeeded in reaching the island of Spitzbergen, but was there 
obliged by the rigor of the seas, filled as they were with icebergs, to return to England. 



EPOCH OF DISCOVERY AND PLANTING. 91 

In the next year he renewed the voj'age, but was unable to find the northeastern passage. 
His courage, however, would not brook defeat, and when his employers declined to furnish 
the means for further explorations he went to Holland and succeeded in finding in Amsterdam 
the patronage which had been denied him in his own country. 

At this time there existed at Amsterdam a powerful commercial corporation known as 
the Dutch East India Company. Before the officers of this association Sir Henry appeared, 
and from them soon obtained assistance. He was given a small ship called the Half-Mooti 
and was directed to prosecute his search for an all-water route to the Indies. In April of 
1609 he sailed on his third voyage into the seas north of Europe. He passed the capes of 
Norway, reached the seventy-second parallel of latitude, turned eastward, gained the frozen 
passage between Lapland and Nova Zembla, but was there turned back by the icebergs. 
Perceiving that it was impossible to beat his way to the east through these inhospitable 
waters he turned his prow to the west, determining if possible to find somewhere on the 
American coast an open channel by which he might reach first the Pacific and afterwards 
the shores of Asia. 

EXPLORATrONS OF HENRY HUDSON. 

It was the month of July, 1609, when Sir Henr}- reached Newfoundland. Repairing 
his ship he sailed southward, touched Cape Cod, and by the middle of August came to the 
Chesapeake. Still the northwest passage was not found. Turning to the north, Hudson 
began to examine the coast more closely than any of his predecessors had done. On the 
28th of the month he entered and explored Delaware Bay. He next traced the coast line to 
New Jersey, and on the 3d of September the Half-Moon found a safe anchorage within 
Sandy Hook. Two days afterwards a landing was made ; the Indians came in great num- 
bers to the scene, bringing their gifts of wild fruits, corn and oysters. New York harbor 
was explored, and on the loth of the month the Half-Moon entered the noble river which 
has ever since borne the name of Hudson. 

For eight days the Half-Moon ascended the stream. On either hand were magnificent 
forests, beautiful hills, palisades, fertile valleys between, planted with Indian corn, and 
mountains rising in the distance. On the 19th the ship was moored at the place afterwards 
called Kinderhook. Hudson and a part of the crew proceeded in the boats as far as the site 
of Albany. The up-river exploration continued for several days when the part>- returned 
to the HalfMoon^ the vessel dropped down stream, and on the 4th of October sailed for 
Holland. On the home-bound voyage Hudson, not unwilling that his former employers 
should know of his great discoveries, put in at Dartmouth where the ship was detained by 
orders of King James and the crew claimed as Englishmen. Hudson was obliged to content 
himself with sending to Amsterdam an account of his great discoveries and his enforced 
detention in England. 

The sequel showed that Sir Henry was not greatly discomposed by his captivity. The 
English merchants came forward with alacrity, furnishing the money for another expedition. 
A ship called the Discovery was given to Hudson and in the summer of 1610 he again 
sailed for the West. The vision of the Indies was before his imagination, but he was 
destined never to see the land of gems and spices or to return to his own country. 

It had now been determined by actual exploration that no northwest passage existed 
between Florida and Maine. The whole coast had been minutely traced and no inlets found 
except bays and the estuaries of rivers. Therefore the coveted passage must be found far 
to the north between the Gulf of St. Lawrence and Greenland. Sir Henr>' now followed 
the track of Frobisher and on the 2d of August reached the strait which was henceforth to 



92 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



bear the name of Hudson. No ship had ever before entered these waters. At the entrance 
the way was barred with many islands ; but further to the west the bay seemed to open, 
the ocean widened to right and left, and the route to Cathay was at last revealed ! So 
believed the great captain and his crew, but further to the west the inhospitable shores 
were seen to narrow again on the more inhospitable sea, and Hudson found himself sur- 
rounded with the terrors of winter in the frozen gulf of the north. 

He bore up against the hardships of his situation until his provisions were almost 
exhausted. Spring was at hand and the day of escape had well nigh arrived when the 
crew broke out in mutiny. They seized Sir Henry and his only son with seven others 
who had remained faithful to the commander, threw them into an open boat and cast them 
off among the icebergs. Nothing further was ever heard of the illustrious mariner who 
had contributed so largely to the geographical knowledge of his times and made possible 
the establishment of still another nationality in the New World. 

Meanwhile, in 1610, the Half-Mooii was liberated at Dartmouth and returned to 
Amsterdam. The Dutch 
merchants reached out 
eagerly to avail them- 
selves of the discover- 
ies made by Hudson. 
Ships were at once 
sent out to engage in 
the fitr-trade on the 
banks of the river 
which that mariner had 
discovered. This traf- 
fic was profitable in the 
highest degree and one 
voyage followed an- 
other. In I 61 4 the 
States-General of 
land passed an 
granting to the 
chants of Amsterdam 
exclusive rights of trade 
and establishment with- 

the limits of the 



Hol- 

act 

mer- 




in 



HALF-MOON ON THE HUDSON. 

Under this commission a .squadron of five trading 



THE 



country explored by Sir Henr>- Hudson. 
ves.sels soon arrived at Manhattan Island. Here some rude huts had already been built by 
former traders; but now a fort for the defence of the place was erected, and the name of 
New Amsterdam was given to the settlement. 

In this same summer of 1614 Captain Adrian Block, commanding one of the trading 
ships, made his way through East River into Long Island Sound. Thence he explored the 
coast as far as Narragansett Bay and even to Cape Cod. Meanwhile Cornelius May, captain 
of the Fortune, .sailed southward along the coast as far as Delaware Bay. Upon these 
various voyages Holland set up her uncertain claim to the country- which was now named 
New Netherlands, extending from Cape Heulopen to Cape Cod. 




CHAPTER V. 
ENGLISH COLONIZATION. 

HILE the colonial enterprises of the Spaniards 
foreran those of the English by more than half 
a century in time, the latter people were finally- 
more successful than their rivals in the work 
of colonizing the new continent They were 
also more fortunate — if fortune is a part of history. 
For they obtained possession, as if by auspicious 
accident, of the better parts of the New World. 
They struck the eastern shores of America ia 
c ^ the latitude of its broadest and most favorable 
belt. The circumstances of settlement also, though 
by no means attended with the pomp and patronage 
that followed the enterprises of France and Spain, 
were nevertheless of a kind to foretoken permanence, 
development and empire. 
We shall here note in brief paragraphs the leading features of the colonization of 
Virginia and Massachusetts. The beginning of the seventeenth century brought in a con- 
dition of affairs more favorable than hitherto to the planting of English settlements in 
North America. At the very beginning of his reign the attention of King James I. was 
turned to the project of colonizing his American possessions. On the loth of April, 1606, 
he issued two great patents to men of his kingdom authorizing them to possess and colonize 
that portion of North America lying between the 34th and 45th parallels of latitude. 

Geographically the great territory thus granted extended from Cape Fear River to 
Passamaquoddy Bay, and westward to the Pacific. The first patent was directed to certain 
nobles, gentlemen ana merchants residing in London. The corporation was called the 
London Company and had for its bottom motives colonization and commerce. The second 
patent was granted to a like body of men which had been organized at Plymouth, in South- 
western England, and was known as the Plymouth Company. In the division of territory 
between the two corporations the country between the 34th and 38th parallels was assigned 
to the London Company, that between the 41st and 45th parallels to the Plymouth Com- 
pany, and the narrow belt of three degrees between the two to each corporation equally, 
but under the restriction that no settlement of one party should be made within less than' 
one hundred miles of the nearest settlement of the other. 

The leader in organizing the London Company was Bartholomew Gosnold. His 
principal associates were Edward Wingfield, a rich merchant; Robert Hunt, a clergyman; 
and Captain John Smith, a man of genius. Others who aided the enterprise were Sit 
John Popham, Chief-Justice of England; Richard Hakluyt, a historian; and Sir Ferdinand 
Gorges, a distinguished nobleman. 

(93) 



94 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



As to the government of the proposed colony tlie royal prerogative was carefully 
guarded. There was to be a Superior Council resident in England. The members of 
this body were to be chosen by the King and might be removed at his pleasure. An 
Inferior Council residing in the colony was provided for; but the members of this body 
were also to be selected by the royal autliority and might be removed at the pleasure of 
the King. All the elements of government were virtually reser\'ed and v-ested in the mon- 
arch. Paternalisna was carried to the extreme in one of the restrictions which required 
Uiat all the property of the colonists should be held in common for the first five years aftef 
organization. The emigrants, however, were favored in one particular, and that wai 
in the concession that they should retain in the New World all the personal and social 
rights and privileges of Englishmen. 

VICISSITUDES OF THE PLVMOUTH AND LONDON COMPANIES. 

As early as August, 1606, the Plymouth Company sent out llicir first ship to America. 
This vessel, however, was captured by a Spanish man-of-war. Later in the year another 
ship was despatched by the company and spent 
the winter on the American coast. In the 
following summer a colony of a hundred per- 
sons was gathered and carried safely to the 
mouth of the River Kennebec, where a settle- 
ment was planted under favorable omens. A fort 
was built and named St. George. For a while 
affairs went well with the settlers. Later in 
the season about one-half of the company 
returned to England ; a dreadful winter set in; i 
the storehouse was burned ; some of the settlers 
were starved, some frozen; and with the com- 
ing of the next summer the miserable remnant 
escaped to England. 

The efforts of the London Company were^ 
attended with greater success. A squadron of 
three vessels was fitted out under connnand 
of Christopher Newport. A colony of a 
hundred and five members was collected on 
board and on the 9th of December, 1606, the '^'^ . john smith. 

ship set sail for the New World. The principal men of the company were Winfield, Smith 
and Newport. The expedition followed the old line of sailing, by way of the Canaries 
and the West Indies and did not reach the American coast until April of the following 
year. The leaders of the colony had steered the fleet for Roanoke Island; but a stonn 
prevailed and the ships were borne northward into the Chesapeake Bay. 

On the sontheni shore of this broad water the pilots soon found the mouth of a beau- 
tiful river which was named in honor of King James. Proceeding up this stream abcut 
fifty miles, Newport chose a peninsula on the northern bank as the site of his settlement. 
Here the colonists were debarked and the ships were moored by the shore. On the 13th of 
May, (old style), 1607, were laid at this place the foundations of Jamestown, the oldest 
English settlement in America. It was within a month of a hundred and ten years after 
the discovery of the continent by the elder Cabot. So long had it taken in an age of war 
and doubt and semi-darkness and unprogressive conditions to possess the first square mile 




EPOCH OF DISCOVERY AND PLANTING. 95 

of that vast and virgin New World which had been revealed by the adventurers of Spain 
and England in the last decade of the fifteenth century. Nearly forty-two years had 
elapsed since the founding of St. Augustine by the Spaniards and twenty-five years from 
the planting of Santa Fe by Antonio de Espego. 

In this way did the I^ondon Company anticipate its rival in establishing an American 
plantation. For several years the Plymouth Company made little progress. Meanwhile 
personal genius contributed not a little to the prospects of England in America. Captain 
John Smith, who had shown himself to be the leading spirit of the Virginia settlement, had 
been wounded by an accident and had returned in 1609 to England. No discouragement 
could daunt the spirit of such a man, and on recovering his health he fonned a partnership 
with four merchants of Eondon with a view to engaging in the fur trade and the work of 
colonization within the limits of the grant made three years previously to the Plymouth 
Company. 

Two ships were accordingly equipped under command of Captain Smith. The summer 
of 1 61 4 he spent on the lower coast of Maine, carrying on a profitable trade with the Indians. 
The crews were well satisfied with their gains and with the profitable pleasures of fishing. 
Captain Smith, however, engaged his energies in the work of exploration. He traced the 
whole coast from the Penobscot to Cape Cod and drew a map of the country which is still 
extant and is a marvel of accuracy and careful work. In this map the name of New Eng- 
land was written as the title of the country — a name which Prince Charles confirmed and 
which history has well preserved for posterity. 

STORY OF THE ENGLISH PURITANS. 

At this juncture we touch the story of the English Puritans. This body of religionists 
had suffered much in England and many had exiled themselves into Holland. Though not 
subject to further persecutions they were nevertheless ill at ease in the land of their banish- 
ment. They were Englishmen ; the unfamiliar tongue of the Dutch grated harshly on their 
ears, and they pined for some other land where they might be secure from molestation and 
found for themselves a new State in the wilderness. 

With a view to promoting this vague project John Carver and Robert Cushman were 
despatched from Leyden to England to act as commissioners for the Puritans before the 
King and his ministers. The agents of the London Company and the Council of Plyniuuth 
gave some encouragement to the petitioners, but the King and the ministry, especially Lord 
Bacon, set their faces against all measures which might seem to favor heretics. The most 
that King James would do was to give an infonnal promise that he would let the Pimtaits 
alone in America. 

Such was the poor report which Carver and Cushman were able to bear back to Hol- 
land. But the exiles were not easily put from their purpose. They resolved of their own 
motion to seek a new home in the wilds of America. With the King's permission or with- 
out it they would go and plant a new State in the western wilderness. They accordingly, 
by sacrifice and contribution, provided two vessels, the Speedzvell and the Mayjlower, fol 
their voyage across the Atlantic. The Speedwell was to carry the emigrants from Leyden 
to Southampton where they were to be joined by the Mayflower with another company 
from London. 

The Puritan congregation in Leyden followed the emigrants to the shore. There under 
the open heaven their pastor, John Robinson, gave them a parting address and benediction. 
Both vessels with the Pilgrims on board came safely to Southampton, where the expedition 
was reorganized- On the 5th of August the two ships put to sea ; but the Speedwell waa 



EPOCH OF DISCOVERY AND PLANTING. 



97 



The compact was 



found to be unfit for the voyage and was obliged to put back to Plymouth. The more 
zealous of the emigrants collected on board the MayJiozvei\ and on the 6th of September 
the first colony of New England, numbering a hundred and two souls saw the shores of Old 
England grow dim and sink behind the sea. 

The Mayflower had a stonny voyage of sixty-three days' duration. The vessel was 
carried out of its course and the first land sighted was the bleak Cape Cod. On the 9th of 
November the ship came to anchor in Cape Cod Bay ; a meeting was held on board and a 
sompact adopted for the government of the colon}'. The emigrants declared their loyaltyf 
to the English crown and covenanted to live together in peace and harmony, conceding 
equal rights to all and obeying just laws made for the common good, 
signed by all and John Carver was chosen governor of the colony. 

LANDING OF THE PILGRIM FATHERS. 
For some days the Mayflotver lay at anchor while the boats were repaired and othei 
preparations made for debarkation. Miles Standish, the great soldier of the company, went 

ashore with a few of 
the braver of the colo- 
nists and made explora- 
tions through the 
dreary country, but 
found nothing of value 
or interest. Storms 
of snow and sleet beat 
upon the company un- 
til their clothes were 
converted into coats-of- 
steered around the coast 
until it was driven, half by accident and half 
by the skill of the pilot, into the safe haven oa 
the west side of the bay. Here, on Monday, 
the nth of December (old style), 1620, the 
Pilgrim Fathers of New England landed on 
Plymouth Rock. 

Before the Puritans was desolation ; behind them a stormy sea. It was midwinter. 
The sleet and snow blew upon them in alternate tempests. The houseless immigrants fell 
a-dying of hunger, cold and despair. A few days were spent in explorations along the 
coast ; a site was chosen near the first landing ; trees were felled and the snowdrifts cleared 
away. On the 9th of January, 1621, the heroic toilers began to build New Plymouth, 
Each man took on himself the work of making his own house ; but the ravages of disease 
grew daily worse. Strong amis fell powerless ; lung fevers and consumption wasted every 
family At one time only seven men were able to work on the sheds which were building 
for shelter from the rigors of winter, while their provisions were so completely exhausted 
that starvation was only avoided by the doling out of a few kernels of com to the famishing 
women and children. To such a desperate extremity were they reduced for a while that 
five kernels of the little store of corn that was between them and fatal famine was the 
allowance three times a day for each member. If an early spring had not come with its 
sunshine and bird-song and gladness the colony must have perished to a man. Such were 
the privations and griefs of that memorable event by which New England began to be. 
7 




SIGNING THE COMPACT. 




DEALING OUT THK MVli KliKNKL,^ Ol- CUK.N. 



EPOCH OF DISCOVERY AND PLANTING. 99 

We are thus at the close of the first quarter of the seventeenth century enabled to view 
the general situation on the eastern shores of our continent. The French had obtained a 
footing in Nova Scotia and on the banks of the St. Lawrence. The English had colonized the 
country of Massachusetts Bay. The Dutch had established themselves on Manhattan Island 
and in detached settlements along the Hudson and the Delaware. In the country of the 
Chesapeake the colony of Jamestown was so well founded as to remove all doubt of its per- 
manency. In Florida the Spaniards had succeeded in planting at St. Augustine and several 
otner places successful and promising settlements. It was clear to the discerning eye of 
reason _ and prophecy that the white race had fixed itself along the western shores of the 
Atlantic m situations which were to become the centres of a civilization to which the New 
World had hitherto been a stranger. We may now properly note in a few paragraphs the 
spread and development of the European colonies on our shores. 

One of the earliest of these was the colony of Connecticut. The history of the set- 
tlement of this pro vince begins with the year 1630. In that year the Council of Plymouth, 

which had in the niean- 
t i m e superseded the 
Plymouth Company, 
made a grant of Ameri- 
can territory to the Earl 
of Warwick. In the 
following year the claim 
was assigned by War- 
wick to Lord Say-and- 
Seal, Lord Brooke, John 
Hampden and others. 
Before this company 
was able to avail itself 
of the grant some of 
the Dutch settlers from 
Manhattan reached the 
Connecticut river and 
built on the after site 
of Hartford a rude for- 
tress which they called 
the House of Goofi 
Hope. 




Settlements 



— aud — 

Distribution of.tho 

Indian Tribes. 



150 



Hearing of this intrusion the people of the Plymouth colony, who claimed the valley 
of the Connecticut, sent out a force to expel their rivals. The English of New Plymouth 
indeea earned their territorial claim westward indefinitely, extending the same beyond the 
Connecticut and the Hudson and covering the Dutch settlements of New Netheriand The 
English expedition from Plymouth entered the Connecticut river, passed the House of Good 
Hope defied the Dutch and about seven miles up the stream built a block-house which thev 
called Windsor. 

^ Not satisfied with this occupation, the people of Boston, in 1635, sent out a colony of 
sixty persons to occupy the Connecticut valley. Settlements were made by these at Hart- 
ford, Windsor and Wethersfield. In the same year John Winthrop, Jr., arrived in New 
England bearing from the proprietaries of the western colony a commission to fortify the 



lOO 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED vSTATES. 



mouth of the Connecticut and to expel the Dutch from that region. A fort was built at the 
entrance to the river which was the founding of Saybrook, so named in honor of the 
proprietaries Lord Say and Lord Brooke. These noblemen, in accordance with their grant, 
had chosen the countr}' of the Connecticut as the scene of their colonization. In this man- 
ner the most imjiortant river of New Kngland was brought under the control of the Puri- 




ROGER WILLIAMS AT THE COUN-CIL OF CANONICUS. 

tans. The colony of Connecticut was established and a 

new vantage gained for the further spread of settlements. 

ROGER WILLIAMS, THE LIBERAL RELIGIONIST. 

The founding of Rhode Island was the work of 
' the celebrated Roger Williams, a young minister of 

Safem village, north of Massachusetts Bay. 

No man in the history of New England deser\-es a brighter or more enduring 
fame, not more for what he did in the founding of a successful colony than for the exertion 
of his influence with Indians whose friendship he had won, by which he .several times saved 
the whites from massacre. His sense of justice was very like that which distinguished 



EPOCH OF DISCOVERY AND PLANTING. loi 

Peun and it was this character that endeared him to the Indians. The Narragansetts and 
Pequods were hereditary enemies, but through the persuasion of Williams they became recon- 
ciled and likewise made a treaty of friendship with the English. But this compact which 
seemed propitious of perpetual peace soon became a source of danger, for being relieved 
of their hereditary foes, the Narragansetts, the Pequods, whose hatred for the English was 
irreconcilable, violated their treaty and perpetrated several outrages which, however, were 
speedily avenged by the militia. Finding themselves unequal to the English, the Pequods 
sought an alliance with the Narragansetts and Mohegans, whom they persuaded to join them 
in an extermination of the whites. The situation thus became critical in the extreme and 
the purpose of the alliance was only defeated through the efforts of Williams, who, first 
notifying Sir Henry Vane, Governor of Massachusetts, of the peril, went alone to the camp 
of the Narragansetts and in the tent of Canonicus he found that chief in council with sev- 
eral notable Pequods. For two days he pleaded with Canonicus to withdraw from the 
alliance and stand steadfast to his vows of peace -yvith the whites, and at length had the intense 
satisfaction of receiving that chief's promise to renounce his murderous purpose. Being 
thus bereft of their allies the Pequods were easily vanquished by the English militia, who 
attacking them suddenly, burned their fort and destroyed all but seven of their warriors. 

The principles of social and political organization, as well as of religious belief, which 
Williams adopted were the most liberal and tolerant which had been proclaimed among 
men since the beginning of the modern era. He assumed that tht- conscience of the indi- 
vidual could not be bound by the magistrate or the civil government ; that the government 
had to do only with the collection of taxes, the restraint of law-breakers, the punishment 
of crime and the protection of all in the enjoyment of equal rights. 

Such utterances as these, however, could not be borne by the narrow-minded religio- 
lists who had colonized New England. So long had the oppressive forces of society and the 
abuses of ecclesiasticism borne upon the Puritans that against the dictates of their better 
natures they had become as wickedly and perniciously intolerant as were the persecutors 
from whom they had escaped in England and Holland. Roger Williams was arraigned for 
his doctrines and expelled from Plymouth colony. His teachings were declared to be hereti- 
cal, destructive of the interests of society and inimical to the best interests of men. He 
was driven away in the dead of winter, and was obliged for fourteen weeks to save himself 
from the snows and inclemency of the season by sleeping in hollow trees and subsisting on 
parched corn, acorns and roots. He went among the Indians whose rights he had defended, 
and was entertained by Massasoit, chief of the Wampanoags, at his cabin at Pokanoket ; 
also by Canonicus, king of the Narragansetts. 

The exile at last made his way to the bank of the Blackstone river, near Narragansett 
Bay, where with the opening of spring he planted a field and built the first rude house ia 
the village of Seekonk. It was soon found, however, that he was still within the territory 
of Plymouth colony. Meanv/hile five companions from Salem and Boston had joined him 
in his banishment, and with these he left his house and crossing to the west side of the 
bay purchased a new tract of land from Canonicus. Here, in June of 1636, he and his 
followers laid out the citv of Providence, and thus became the fatliers of Rhode Island. 

Already a settlement had been effected in the territory of New Hampshire. In 1622 
the country between the rivers Merrimac and Kennebec, reaching from the sea to the St. 
Lawrence, was granted by the Council of Plymouth to Sir Ferdinand Gorges and John 
Mason. The proprietaries made haste to secure their rights by planting a colony. In the 
spring of 1623 two small companies of emigrants were sent out by Mason and Gorges to 



I02 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



hold Uicir province. Already a score of years previously New Hampshire had been 
visited by Martin Pring ; and the adventurous Captain Smith, in 1614, had explored and 
mapped the coast 

After the settlement at Plymouth the plantations on the Merrimac were the oldest in 
all New England. The progress of the colon)', however, was slow. The first villages 
were no more than fishing stations. After six years the proprietaries divided their dominion 
between them. Gorges taking the northern and iMason the southern portion of the province. 
The minister, John Wheelwright, came into New Hampshire and purchased the rights 
of the natives to the territorj' occupied by IMason's colony. A second patent was issued 
to the proprietar}', and the name of the province was changed from Laconia to New 
Hampshire. 

In the meantime the same kind of expansion was taking place from the parent colony 
in Virginia. As early as 1621 William Clayborne, a resolute English surveyor, was sent 
out by the London Company to make a map of the countr}" of the Chesapeake. The terri- 
tory of Virginia had by the terms of the second charter been extended on the north to the 
fort>--first parallel of lati- ^^^ ^ ^^^^ ^ .^^ ...^ 



1?^ 




tude. This included the 
present States of Mary- 
land and Delaware and a 
great part of New Jerf-e 7 
and Pennsylvania. The 
ambitions of the London 
Company were inflamed 
with the possession of so 
vast and beautiful a 
territor)-, and they put 
forth laudable efibrts to 
explore and occupy it 
before it s h o u 1 d be 
sought and seized by 
rival colonists. 

Clayborne was him- 
self a member of the 
Council for Virginia, and 
was Secretary of State in that colony. In 1631 he was sent out as a royal commis- 
sioner to discover the sources of the Chesapeake, to establish a trade with the Indians and 
exercise the right of governor over his companions and any settlement that he might 
form. His enterprise was attended with success. He first planted a trading post on Kent 
Island and another at the head of the bay in the vicinity of Havre de Grace. The, 
rivers that fall into the Chesapeake were explored and traffic established with the 
natives. It seemed for the time that the territory' of \"irginia was about to be ex- 
tended to the borders of New Nethcrland. 

RIVALRY BETWEEN CATHOLICS AND PROTESTANTS. 

In the meantime, however, other historical forces had been set in operation by which 
the intended character of the central American colonies was permanently changed. The 
religious struggles and persecutions which since the beginning of the Refonnation had 
been prevalent in the Old World became the efficient causes of the planting of a nev 



ROGER WILLIAMS AMONG THE INDIANS. 



EPOCH OF DISCOA'ERY AND PLANTING. 



103 



colony on the north of Virginia, and the limitation of her territories in that direction. 
The personal agent through whose instrumentalit}- this work was to be accomplished was 
Sir George Calvert, of Yorkshire. This distinguished nobleman whose name is indissolubly 
associated with the colonial historj' of the United States was educated at Oxford. He had 
devoted much time to travel and study. He was an ardent and consistent Catholic, a 
friend of humanity, honored with knighthood and a member of the Irish peerage, with the 
title of Lord Baltimore. 

In Protestant England the tables had been turned by the Refonned party on the 
Catholics, and the latter suffered not a little through the malevolence and injustice of the 
fonner. The dominant Church of England persecuted both the Catholics and the dissent- 
ing Protestants, following them with hatred and violence even to foreign lands. It was 
this condition of affairs that first suggested to Lord Baltimore the planting of a Catholic 

colony in Newfoundland. He secured from 
King James a patent for the southern part of 
the island and there, in 1623, established a 
refuge for the distressed people of his faith. 

In such a situation, however, no colony 
could thrive. The countrj' was cheerless and 
desolate. Profitable iudustiy^ was impossible. 
Only the fishing interest invited to enter- 
prise and trade. Besides, the ships of France 
hovered around the coasts and captured the 
English fishing-boats. Lord Baltimore 
became convinced that his countr}'men must 
be removed to a more favorable situation, and 
in selecting, his attention was turned to the 
genial country of the Chesapeake. In 1629 
he went in person to Virginia and was favor- 
ably received by the Assembly. That body, 
however, in offering him citizenship required 
an oath to which no honest Catholic could 
subscribe. Sir George pleaded for toleration; 
but the Assembly would not yield and Lord 
SIR GEORGE CAI.VERT (LORD BALTIMORE). Baltimore was obliged to turn away, 

[n the meantime the London Company had been dissolved and the King of England 
had recovered whatever rights and privileges he had fonnerly conceded to that corporation- 
It was therefore within his power to re- grant the vast territory' north of the River Potomac, 
which by the terms of the second charter had been conceded to Virginia. When the 
Assembly refused toleration to Baltimore, he turned from that body and appealed to the 
King for a charter for himself and his colony. King Charles I. heard the petition with 
favor and the charter was drawn and received the royal signature. The Virginians, by 
their intolerance had saved their religion and lost a provmce. 

SETTLEMENT OF MARYLAND UNDER A CODE OF LIBERAL LAWS. 

The territor}^ granted to Sir George Calvert was ample. It extended, after the 

phraseology of the times, from ocean to ocean. The boundary- on the north was the 40th 

parallel. On the west the limit was to be a line drawn due south from the 40th parallel to 

the westernmost fountain of the Potomac. That river was to constitute the southern bona- 




104 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



^ 



dary. A glance at the map will show that the original grant included the present States of 
Maryland and Delaware, besides a large part of Pennsylvania and New Jersey. 

On the whole the charter issued to Sir George Calvert was the most liberal of any 
which the English kings had tiius far granted to their subjects. Christianity was declared 
to be the religion of the State, but no preference was given to sect or creed. The lives and 
property of the colonists were put under the careful protection of English law. Free trade 
was declared as the policy of the province, and arbitrary taxation was forbidden. Tho( 
appointment of the officers of the colonial govern- 
ment was conceded to the lord proprietary and the »-. 
right of mnkiug and amending the laws to a ' "" 
popular assembly. 

While engaged in this benevolent work Sir 
George Calvert died and his estates and titles 
descended to his son 
Cecil, the second ■ • 

Lord Baltimore. He, 
however, received 




LEONARD CAI.VERT PLANTING THB 
FIRST COI.ONV IN MARYLAND. 

the charter which had been intended for 
his father. In honor of Henrietta Maria, 
daughter of Henry IV., of France, and 
wife of King Charles, the name of Mary- 
land was conferred on the new province. 
Hh independence was guaranteed by the royal constitution and it only remained for Six 
Cecil to carry out his father's purposes of planting a free State in the New World. Some 
time, however, was consumed in gathering a colony and it was not until 1633 that 
a company of two hundred persons was collected for the voyage. Lord Baltimore had by 
this time changed his mind with respect to conducting the enterprise in person. Instead 
of accompanying his colony he appointed his brother, Leonard Calvert, to act as deputy 
governor, and sent him forth to plant the new American State. 

It was in March of 1634 that the Catholic immigrants arrived at Old Point Comfort 



EPOCH OF DISCOVERY AND PLANTING. 105 

Calvert bore a letter from the King charging Governor Harvey, of Virginia, to receive the 
new comers with courtesy and favor. The governor was obliged to obey ; but the 
Virginians were inflamed with jealousy at the success of an enterprise which they could but 
perceive would deprive them of the profitable fur trade of the upper Chesapeake. 

Sailing up the bay, Ivconard Calvert and his colony entered the Potomac. After some 
elcplorations they selected the country at the mouth of the St. Mary's as the site of their set- 
tlement. Here the colonists took possession of a half-abandoned Indian town, purchased 
the surrounding territory, set up a cross as the sign of Catholic occupation and gave the 
name of St. Mary's to this the oldest colony of Maryland. It was thus that by strange 
vicissitude a company of Catholic immigrants was established in the midst of Protestant 
dissenters on the American coast. While the Huguenots had been driven into exile by the 
persecutions of the Mother Church and had sought refuge in New France, the very same 
kind of proscription and religious vindictiveness thrust forth from Protestant England the 
Catholic fathers of Maryland. 

We may now glance at the work of colonization in the country south of Virginia. The 
year 1630 witnessed the first effort to plant a settlement in the region below the territorial 
limits of the London Company. In that year the territory between the 30th and 36th 
parallels of latitude was granted by the King to Sir Robert Heath. This nobleman, how- 
ever, did not succeed in organizing a colony. His successor, Lord Maltravers, was equally 
unsuccessful. The patent continued in force for thirty-three years and was then revoked 
by the royal authority. Almost the only historical result of the issuance of Sir Robert's 
charter was the preservation of the name of Carolina which had been given by the Hugue- 
nots to the country of their choice. 

COLONIZATION OF NORTH CAROLINA. 

Before the time of which we speak, namely, in 1622, the coast of the southern territory 
was explored by Pory, secretary of Virginia. In 1642 a company of Virginian adventurers 
obtained leave of the Assembly to prosecute discovery on the lower P oanoke and open a 
trade with the Indians. The first actual settlement made in this region was at the mouth 
of the river Chowan in the year 165 1. Soon afterwards William Claybome, of Maryland, 
made explorations along this part of the coast. In 1661 a company of New England Puri- 
tans entered the Cape Fear River, purchased lands of the natives and established a colony 
on Oldtown creek, nearly two hundred miles further south than any other English settle- 
ment. In 1663 Lord Clarendon, General Monk — now honored with the title of Duke of 
Albemarle — and six other noblemen received from King Charles II. a patent for all the 
country between the 36th parallel and the river St. Johns, in Florida. With this grant the 
colonial history of North Carolina properly begins. 

The settlement at the mouth of the river Chowan flourished. William Drummond was 
chosen governor in 1663 ^'^^1 the settlement was named the Albemarle County Colony. 
Two years afterwards it was discovered that the settlement was north of the 36th parallel 
and therefore beyond the limits of the grant to Clarendon and Monk. To remedy this the 
northern boundary of Carolina was fixed at thirty-six degrees and thirty miniites — a line 
which has ever since remained as the southern limit of the parent American colony. The 
Puritan settlement on Cape Fear River was broken up by hostile Indians; but soon after- 
wards a territory including the site, with thirty-two miles square of the surrounding country, 
was purchased by certain planters from Barbadoes. A new county called Clarendon county 
was laid out and Sir John Yeamans was appointed governor. This adventure prospered 
greatly; new immigrants eagerly sought the settlement, and within a year the colony num- 
bered eight hundred souls. 



io6 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



Several years elapsed, however, before branch settlements were thrown off to the south. 
It was not until 1670 that a company made its way into the county of South Carolina 
and there laid the foundations of a new State. The colony was enlisted for the most part 
from England. The leaders were Joseph West and William Sayle. At the date of the pro- 
jection of the enterprise there was not a European settlement between Cape Fear River 
and the St. Johns, in Florida. The country, however, was one of the most attractive of 
the whole American coast. The new colony came by way of Barbadoes, steered far to the 
jouth and reached the mainland near the mouth of the Savannah. The vessels entered the 
harbor of Port Royal. A hundred and eight years had elapsed since John Ribault, leader 
of the Huguenots, had set up on the island in this same harbor a rude stone memorial 
bearinof the lilies and emblems of France. But 
France had failed to colonize the country of 
her discover)- and now the Englishman had 
come. 

FOUNDING OF CHARLESTON AND SETTLEMENT OF 
NEW JERSEY. 

After some explorations through the country' 
the new colony entered the Ashley River, and 
going on .shore laid the foundations of Old 
Charleston, so named in honor of the English 
King. Of this, the first settlement of South 
Carolina, no trace remains except the line of a 
ditch which was digged around the ancient fort. 
But the colony was planted and became the 
nucletis of another American commonwealth. 

Following the order of settlement we next 
come to the planting of New Jersey. Tiiis 
province has an early histor>' closely linked 
with that of New Netherland. The first settle- 
ment was that of Elizabethtown, in 1664. As 
early as 1618 a trading station had been fixed 
at Bergen, west of the Hudson. But forty }ears 
passed before a permanent settlement was made 
at that place. In 1623 Fort Nassau was built, 
where Timber Creek falls into the Delaware. 
This was the work of Cornelius ]\Iay and his 
companions. But these adventurers abandoned their outpost and returned to New 
Amsterdam. In 1629 ^'^^ southern part of New Jersey was granted to two Dutch patrons 
named Godyn and Blomaert, but the proprietaries made no attempt at settlement. 

Many years went by before the colonization of tliis part of the country was again 
undertaken. At length, in 1651, Augustine Herman purchased a considerable district in 
Jersey, including the site of Elizabethtown. Seven years later the grant was enlarged so 
as to take in the trading-post of Bergen. In 1663 a company of Puritans about to emigrate 
from Long Island obtained permission of Governor Stuyvesant to occupy the lands on the 
Raritan, but before their purpose could be carried out the Dutch Government was over- 
thrown by the English. 

The English crown had never recognized the claims of the Dutch to the country' of 




EPOCH OF DISCO\^ERY AND PLANTING. 



107 



New Amsterdam. It had only been a question of time when violence would be used to 
extend the claim of England over the whole region occupied by the immigrants from 
Holland. King Charles II. at length took up the question, and in 1664 made a grant of 
New Netherland and the whole country as far south as the Belav/are to his brother the 
Duke of York. The latter in turn granted the province between the Hudson and the 
Delaware to Lord Berkeley and Sir George Carteret. These were the same noblemen who 
were already proprietaries of Carolina. They had adhered to the King's cause during the 
civil war in England, and had now come into their reward. Their friend Charles IL 
added to their former possessions a second American province of great extent and promise. 
As soon as the authority of the Dutch was overthrown in New Netherland — as soon as the 
English governor Nicolls had taken the place of Peter Stuyvesant — a company of Puritans 

made application to the governor for the privilege of 
occup)'ing the lands on Newark Ba}'. This was granted; 
the Indian titles were purchased by the colonists, and 
in October of 1664 Elizabethtown, the oldest settlement 
in New Jersey, was founded and named in honor of the 
Lady Carteret. 

The grants made by the English kings at the begin- 
ning of our civil history frequently overlapped one 
another, the second superseding the first or contradict- 
ing its provisions. Governor Nicolls of New York had 
been recognized by the English Crown as in rightful 
authority over all New Netherland; but in 1665 Philip 
Carteret, son of Sir George, arrived bearing a commis- 
sion from the Duke of York as governor of the country 
between the Hudson and the Delaware. Nicolls resisted 
this claim, but in vain. Elizabethtown was made the 
capital of the new province. Other settlements were 
established on the banks of the Passaic. Newark was 
soon founded. Hamlets were planted along the shores of 
the bay from the present site of Jersey City as far as 
Sandy Hook. It was in honor of Sir George Carteret, 
who had been governor of the Isle of Jersey, that his 
American domain was named New Jersey. 




WILLIAM PENN IN PENNSYLVANIA. 

We are here anticipating the many events of interest with which the colonial history 
of America in the seventeenth century was filled. We pass over for the present the course 
of events in the parent colonies to note in order of succession the founding of Pennsyl- 
, VANIA, This was effected under the auspices of the great Quaker leader William Penn and 
/the Society of Friends whom he led in their American enterprises. Already this people had 
planted flourishing settlements in New Jersey and were greatlj' encouraged with theii 
• success ; the thought of Penn was to found on the banks of the Delaware a free State, 
having for its foundation stone the principle of universal brotherhood. 

Great had been the sufferings of the Friends in England. Imprisonment, exile and 
proscription had been their constant portion. Nor did the signs of the times indicate any 
relaxation in the policy of the English kings towards this innocent and persecuted people. 



loS 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



It was under these conditions that Penn and his leading associates conceived the project 
of establishing a complete and glorious refuge for the afflicted Quakers in the unoccupied 
wilds of America. The leader went boldly to King Charles, made his petition, and on the 
5th of March, 1681, received a charter bearing the great seal of England and the signature 
of Charles II. William Peuu was made the proprietary of the province which received his 
name. A vast and virgin territory, bounded east by the Delaware, extending north and 
south through three degrees of latitude and westward through five degrees of longitude, 
was granted to him and received the name of Pennsylvania. Only the three counties com. 
prising the present State of Delaware were reserved for the Duke of York. 

The grant was complicated. Penn had held against the British government a claim 
for sixteen thousand pounds sterling, due to his father's estate. This he agreed to relinquish 
in consideration of the grant and charter. He openly declared his purpose to found in 
America a free commonwealth without re- 
spect to the color, race or religion of the 
inhabitants. He believed that the natives 
might be conciliated and won over by a 
policy of justice and humanity, that a re- 
fuge might be established on the Delaware 
for all oppressed peoples who might choose 
for conscience' sake to flee from the op- 
pressions and hardships of their homes in 
Europe. 

The event fully justified the policy. 
In an incredibly j:hort time three shiploads 
of Quaker emigrants were sent from 
England to the land of promise. With 
these came William Marklmm, agent of 
the proprietary, and deputy-governor of 
the new province. Penn exerted himself 
to be at peace with all. He wrote to the 
Swedes who had established themselves in 
the country' covered by his charter that they 
should be in no wise disturbed — that they 
should keep their homes, make their own 
laws and fear no oppression. He also 
instnicted his deputy to make a league of friendship with the Indians and to see that no 
injustice was done by the colonists to the original owners of the land. He sent a letter 
directly to the native chiefs, assuring them of his honest piirposes and brotherly affection. 

In the next place Penn drew up a frame of government — liberal almost to a fault.) 
Instead of endeavoring to extort large profits from his colonial enterprise, he conceded 
everj'thing to the people, allowing them even to accept or reject the constitution which. h? 
had drawn for their goveniment. The world had not hitherto witnessed so great liberality, 
so complete a confidence on the part of a powerful governor in the righteousness of human 
nature, the essential integrity of man. The proprietarj- was not satisfied with the excep- 
tion of the three Delaware counties from his grant. With extraordinary skill and confi- 
dence he approached the Duke of York and induced him to surrender the three counties 
in favor of the Quaker colony. Thus was the whole country on the western bank of the 




WII.I.IAM PKNN. 



EPOCH OF DISCOVERY AND PLANTING. 109 

bay aud river, as far north as the 33d degree of latitude, brought under the dominion of 
William Penu. This work occupied the years 1681-82. In the summer of the latter 
year Penn made his preparations to depart for America. He wrote a letter of farewell to 
the Friends in England. A large company of emigrants gathered about him. They took 
ship and departed for America, aud on the 27th of October landed at Newcastle, where 
their friends who had preceded them were waiting to receive them. 

Great was the joy of the new comers and of those who had already established them- 
selves in the colony. The crowd at the landing was composed not only of the Quaker 
immigrants, but of Swedes and Dutch and English who had come to greet the new 
governor. He made an address on the day of his landing, renewing his former pledges 
and exhorting the people to sobriety and honesty. He then ascended the river as far as 
Chester. He passed the site of Philadelphia, aud visited the settlements of the Friends in 
West New Jersey. He crossed the province to New York and Long Island, speaking word 
of comfort to the Quakers about Brooklyn, and then returned to the Delaware to assume 
his duties as chief magistrate. 

PENN IN COUNCIL WITH THE INDIANS. 

Meanwhile Markham, the deputy governor, had faithfully followed his instructions. 
Friendly relations had been established with the Indians of the neighboring tribes. This 
feature of policy Penn dwelt upon as essential to the happiness of the two peoples. The 
Indian lands were in every case honorably purchased by the Quakers, and many pledges 
of friendship were exchanged between them and their red brethren of the forest. Soon 
after the return of Penn from New York a great conference was held with the native chiefs. 
All the sachems of the Lenni Lenapes and other neighboring tribes were called together on 
the Delaware. The council was held under the open sky. Penn, accompanied by a few 
unarmed Friends, clad in the plain garb of the Quakers, came to the appointed spot and 
took his station under a venerable elm, now leafless, for it was winter. The chieftains also 
sat unarmed at the council. After the manner of their race they arranged themselves in a 
semi-circle to hear the address of their great brother. Standing before them with quiet 
demeanor and speaking by his interpreter, Penn said : — 

' ' My Friends : We have met on the broad pathway of good faith. We are all one 
flesh and blood. Being brethren, no advantage shall be taken on either side. When dis- 
putes arise we will settle them in council. Between us there shall be nothing but openness 
and love. ' ' 

The chiefs replied : "While the rivers run and the sun shines we will live in peace 
with the children of William Penn." 

This simple compact of brotherly faith was not reduced to writing, but it was ever 
observed with fidelity by both peoples. No deed of violence or injustice on the part of 
either is recorded to mar the faithfulness of the red men or the simple-hearted folk with 
whom they made the treaty. The peace was perpetual. For more than seventy years, 
while the province remained under the control of the Friends, not a war whoop was heard 
within the borders of Pennsylvania. The Quaker hat and coat proved to be a better 
defence for the wearer than coat-of-mail and musket. 

The rapid growth of the colony made a legislative Assembly necessary to the genera! 
welfare. In December of 1682 a general convention of the colonists was held at Chester. 
The work of the body occupied but three days. At the close of the session Penn delivered 
an address to the Assembly and then hastened to visit Lord Baltimore, with whom he had 
an important conference relative to the boundaries between the two provinces. After a 



no 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



mcnth's abseuce he leturned to Chester and gave his attention to the selection and mapping 
of a site for a capital. The neck of land between the Schuylkill and the Delaware was 
chosen and purchased of the Swedes. The forest as yet covered these lauds, and the 
chestnut, the walnut and the ash furnished the names for the streets of the city that was to 
be. In 1683 the work of founding was begun. The lines of the streets were first indicated 
by blazing the forest trees. As for name, Peun chose Philadelphia — City of Brotherl/ 
Love. 

THE RAPID BUILDING OF THE QUAKER CAPITAL. 

Never before had such success attended the planting of a town in America. It came as 
if by magic. Within a month the General Assembly \vas able to meet at the new capital. 
The work of legislation was now begun in earnest and a Charter of Liberties was framed 
in which the powers and prerogatives of the government were defined. The common- 
wealth was made a representative democracy. The leading officers were the governor, an 
advisor)' council consisting of a limited number of members chosen for three years and a 
larger popular assembly to be elected annually. The proprietary conceded everything to 
the people ; but the power of vetoing objectionable 
acts of the council was left in his hands. 

Primitive Philadelphia was a marvel of growth and 
prosperity. In the summer of 16S3 there were only 
three or four houses. The ground-squirrels were still 
undisturbed in their burrows and the wild deer were seen 
under the oaks and chestnuts. In 1685 the city contained 
six hundred houses! Schools had been established, and 
the printing-press had begun its work. In another year 
Philadelphia had outgrown New York. Of a certainty 
the spirit in which the city was founded, the sense of 
security, the cooperation of all men with their neighbors 

brought the legitimate fruits of prosperity and astonish- ' "'"" • " ' ■ ■' — ^ - 

ing development. 

We have now sketched the planting of twelve out of the thirteen original colonies of the 
United States. It only remains to notice the founding of the thirteenth — Georgia. The 
reader will have noted how far forward we have been carried in following out the history 
of the colonial establishments. The two Caroliuas, Pennsylvania and Georgia belong by 
the dates of their first planting to the second rather than the first period in our histor>'; but 
the unity of the work is best preserved by classifying them with the rest 

As in the case of the Quaker State the colony of Georgia was the product of a benev- 
olent impulse. The English philanthropist James Oglethorpe, struck with compassion at 
the miserable condition of the English poor conceived the design of forming for them an 
asylum in America. The chief abuse to wliich the poor of England were subjected was 
imprisonment for debt. Such was the law of the realm. Thousands of English laborers 
becoming indebted to the rich were annually arrested and thrown into jail. Their 
families were generally left to misery and starvation. This crime against humanity became 
so common and so terrible that a cry of the oppressed at last reached Parliament. In 
1728 James Oglethorpe was appointed at his own request to look into the condition of the 
English poor and to report measures of relief He perfonned his duty in a manner so 
creditable that the debtor jails were opened and the poor victims of poverty set free to return 
to their families. 




And 



EPOCH OF DISCOVERY AND PLANTING. 



Ill 



The condition, however, of the classes thus liberated was pitiable in the extreme. 
The emancipated prisoners were disheartened and disgraced. It was with the purpose of 
furnishing a refuge and an asylum for this class of sufferers that Oglethorpe appealed to King 
George II. for the privilege of granting a colony in America. The petition was fortunately 
not made in vain. On the 9th of June, 1732, a royal charter was issued, by which the 
territory between the Savannah and Altamaha Rivers and westward to the Pacific was 
granted to a corporation for twenty-one years to be held in trust for the poor. In honor ot' 
the King, the new province was called Georgia. 

SAVANNAH FOUNDED AS AN ASYLUM FOR THE POOR. 

The character of the founder was such as to attract sympathy and confidence to hia 
enterprise. Oglethorpe was a loyalist by birth and an Oxford man by education. He was 
1 high-churchman, a cavalier, a soldier, a member of Parliament In his personal character 

he was benevolent, generous, sympathetic, 
brave as John Smith, chivalrous as De Soto. 
With his accustomed magnanimity he under- 
took in person the leadership of the first 
colony to be planted on the Savannah. 

During the summer and autumn Ogle- 
thorpe collected a colony of a hundred and 
twenty persons. The emigrant ships left 
England in November and reached Charles- 
ton in January of 1733. After some explora- 
tions the high bluff on which the city of 
Savannah now stands was selected as the 
site of the settlement. Here, on the ist of 
February, were laid the foundations of the 
oldest English town south of the Savannah 
River. Broad streets were laid out, public 
squares were reserved, and a beautiful village 
of tents and board houses soon appeared 
among the pine trees as the capital of a new 
commonwealth in which men should not be 
imprisoned for debt. 

The settlement flourished and grew. In 
1736 a second considerable company of im- 
migrants arrived. Part of these were Moravians, a people of deep piety and fervent spirit 
First and most zealous among them was the celebrated John Wesley, founder of Methodism. 
He came not as a politician, not as a minister merely, but as an apostle to the New World. 
Such was his own thought of his mission. His idea was to spread the gospel, to convert 
the Indians, and to introduce a new type of religion, characterized by few fonns and 
much emotion. His brother Charles, the poet, was a timid and tender-hearted man, who 
was chosen by the governor as his secretary. Two years afterwards came the famous 
George Whitefield, whose robust and daring nature proved equal to the hardships of the 
wilderness. These men became the evangelists of those new forms of religious faith and 
practice which were destined after the Revolution to gain so firm a footing and exercise so 
wide an influence among the American people. 




JAMES OGLETHORPE. 



CHAPTER VI. 
VIRGINIA. 




HE reader will not have forgotten the circninstances ot 
the founding of the oldest American colony on tie 
river James. At the first the settlement was badly 
managed, but the fortune of the colonists was at length 
restored by the valor, industry' and enterprise of theii 
remarkable leader, Captain John Smith. The other 
members of the corporation showed little capacity for 
government; and some of the foremost men were not 
only incompetent, but dishonest. Under Captain 
Smith's direction, however, Jamestown soon began to 
show signs of vitality and progress. The first settlers 
were afflicted with the diseases peculiar to their situa- 
tion. Captain Smith adopted such improvements in 
building and food-supply that the health of the settlers 
was measurably restored. His own confidence was 
dififused in those who lacked, and the project of 
abandoning the settlement was at length given over. 
As soon as practicable. Captain Smith entered upon 
that series of explorations and adventures which in the aggregate has converted his life 
into a romance. We find him now in the Chesapeake, making a map of that broad and 
important water, naming its tributaries. Now he is a prisoner among the Indians during 
the greater part of the winter, and escaping from captivity through the intercession of chief 
Powhatan's daughter, Pocahontas, who threw herself between the prostrate body of Smith 
and the uplifted club of the executioner, but wandering back to the settlement only to 
find the colony wasted away to thirty-eight persons. At the very crisis of distress, how- 
ever, Captain Newport returned from England with a cargo of supplies and a new company 
of immigrants. 

For two years John Smith was in the ascendant and the colony was shaped in its desti- 
nies by his masterly hand. In 1609, however, while sleeping in a boat on the James he 
was wounded by the explosion of a bag of gimpowder. His flesh was torn in a horrible 
manner and in his agony he jumped overboard. For some time he lay in the tortures of 
fever and great suffering from his wound. At length he detennined to seek for medical and 
surgical aid in England. He accordingly delegated his authority to Sir George Percy and 
in the autumn of 1609 left the scenes of his toils and sufferings never to return. 
I His loss was soon seriously felt in the colony. The first settlers had been an improvi- 
dent folk, little disposed to labor and economy. The winter of 1609-10 was known as the 
■6tarving-time. The settlers were reduced to great want, and in the following spring it was 
detennined to abandon Jamestown and return to England. The embarkation was actually 
effected; but before the settlers had passed out of the mouth of the James the ships of Lord 
Delaware came in sight with many additional emigrants and abundant stores. The colo* 
nists reluctantly gave up their design and returned to their abandoned houses. 

(.12) 



EPOCH OF DISCOVERY AND PLANTING. 



"3 



Ivord Delaware was succeeded in the government of Virginia by Sir Thomas Dale, and 
he in turn by Sir Thomas Gates. The latter held office until 1614 when Dale was recalled, 
and Gates returned to England. In 161 7 Samuel Argall was chosen governor and entered 
upon an administration noted rather for fraud and oppression than for wise and humane 
policy. For two years he remained in authority, until the discontent of the colonists led to 
bis recall and the appointment of Sir George Yeardley in his stead. It was during his 
administration that the communistic features of the settlement were done away and a 
better form of civil management introduced. The territory of the colony was divided into 
eleven districts, called boroughs, and the governor issued a proclamation to the citizens of 
each borough to select two of their own number to constitute a legislative assembly. Elec- 
tions were accordingly held and on the 30th July, 161 9, the delegates convened at James- 
town. Here was organized the Virginia House of Burgesses or Colonial Legislature, the 
first popular assembly held in the New World. 

INTRODUCTION OF NEGRO SLAVERY. 
The same year was marked by another event which was destined to exercise a vast 
influence on the future history of the country, and indeed of mankind. This was the intro- 
duction of negro slavery into Virginia. The servants 
of the people of Jamestown had hitherto been persons 
of English or German descent and their tenn of 
ser\ace had varied from a few months to many years. 
Perpetual servitude, or slavery proper, had not thus 
far been recognized. Nor is it likely that the English 
colonists would of themselves have instituted the sys- 
tem of slave labor. In the month of August, 161 9, a 
Dutch man-of-war sailed up the James to the colonial 
establishment and offered by auction twenty Africans 
as slaves. They were purchased by the wealthier 
class of planters and reduced to ser\'itude for life. 
There does not appear to have been at first any proper 
sense or estimate of the thing done among the 
colonists. They were for a long time indifferent to 
the success and continuance of the system. It was 
nearly a half century from the time of the introduc- 
tion of negro slavery before it became a well estab- 
lished institution in the English colonies. 

In a few years after the plantation of Jamestown 
other settlements were made in the James Pviver 
country as far up as Richmond and beyond. The 
commonwealth of Virginia grew and expanded by) 
the natural laws of development. New immigrants 
came from England, Scotland and Ireland. The native-born multiplied rapidly, and 
the adventurous pioneers put out from older settlements to claim the better land for 
themselves and their descendants. Civil and political institutions adapted to the needs of 
the colony were framed by the leaders and the permanence of the new State was assured. 

But the one element wanting for the permanent settlement and future prosperity of the 
colony was — ^women, without the help of whom man's successes are rarely pronounced. 
Very few families had emigrated to Virginia and society was in a nebulous state, not to say 
S 




MAP OF THB CHESAPEAKE. 




8 



H 

o 



O 

H 

(4 



(114) 



EPOCH OF DISCOVERY AND PLANTING. 115 

cloudy and forbidding. To remedy this uninviting condition in the fall of 1620 ninety 
young women w^re induced to cast their fortunes and seek husbands among the Virc^nia 
colomsts, and m the following spring sixty other likely and courageous marriageables landed 
at the new settlement and became wives to the pioneers. The London Company being too 
poor to bear the expense of passage, the colonists were allowed to select wives from among 
the women who had been brought 
over by paying a sum of one hun- 
dred and fifty pounds, or its equiva- 
lent in tobacco, for the privilege, a 
condition to which neither party to 
the contract had the least objection. 




THE WAR-SHIP "guinea" ENFORCING SUBMISSION. 

This course of affairs continued with 
little variation from the planting of the 
colony to the outbreak of the English Re- 
volution of 1640. Virginia sympathized 
rather with the King's party than with th« 
_ _ Parliamentarians in the long and bloody 

struggle of the Civil War. The degree of 
Pemoval, however, from the dissensions and conflicts of the mother country saved 
the Virginians from the more serious consequences of the struggle. In the first year 
of the rise of the people against the King, Sir William Berkeley came oiit to Virginia 
as royal governor, and with the exception of a brief visit to England in 1645 re- 
mained in office for ten years. Berkeley was a man of large administrative abilities and 
notwithstanding the political disturbance in the Old World and the New, Virginia prospered 



ii6 PEOPLE'vS HISTORY OF TIIK I'XITKD STATES. 

under his hand. The settlements were rapidly increased in population and importance. 
The colonial laws were improved in many particulars and were made more comformable to 
the laws of England. The long existing controversies about the Virginia land titles were 
amicably settled. Cruel punishments were abolished, and the taxes equalized. Berkeley 
was, however, a thorough loyalist, and to this extent there was discord between him and the 
democracy of the colony. 

Most of the Virginians, however, adhered to the cause of Charles I. even to the day of 
his death. When that monarch was beheaded they proclaimed his son Charles II. the 
rightful ruler of England and of the English colonies in America. Oliver Cromwell, the 
Lord High Protector of the commonwealth, was offended at this conduct of the Virginians 
and determined to employ force against them. He ordered the war-ship Guinea to be 
equipped and sent into the Chesapeake to enforce submission; but in the last extreme he 
showed himself to be just as well as wrathful. Commissioners of the English common- 
wealth were sent on board the vessel to make overtures of peace to the colonists. They 
were told to carry the olive branch in one hand and the sword in the other. By this time 
it had become apparent that the cause of the Stuart kings was hopeless. The people of 
Virginia perceived that their loyalty to an overthrown House was out of season and they 
cheerfully entered into negotiations with Cromwell's delegates. In a short time they were 
brought to acknowledge the supreme authority of Parliament and the Protector was not 
obliged to employ force against his subjects. 

OUTRAGES OF A PROFLIGATE MONARCH, AND BACON'S REBELLION. 

With the failure of the PyUglish commonwealth Charles II. was restored to the throne 
of his ancestors. He came to his ancient regal inheritance as one might do to the inherit- 
ance of an estate. He chose to consider the British Empire as personal property to be used 
for the benefit of himself and his courtiers. In order to reward the worthless profligates 
who thronged his court he began to grant to them large tracts of land in Virginia. True, 
these lands had been redeemed from the wilderness by the labor of men and were planted 
with orchards and gardens ; but it was no uncommon thing for an American planter to 
find that his farm which had been cultivated for a quarter of a century had been given away 
to some dissolute flatterer of the royal household. Great distress was produced by these 
iniquities in the colony. Finally, however, in 1673, the King set a limit to his own reck- 
lessness by giving away the whole State of Virginia ! Lord Culpepper and the Earl of 
Arlington, two ignoble noblemen, received under the great seal a deed by which was granted 
to them for thirty-one years "all the dominion of land and water called Virginia." 

The tyranny and exactions of Sir William Berkeley, governor of tlie colony, brought at 
length their legitimate fruits of discontent and insurrection. His administration became 
odious and the people rose in rebellion. The revolt was coupled with and excused by an 
Indian war. The Susquehannas became hostile and the pioneers of the border suffering 
from flieir incursions took up arms. The insurgent militia found a suitable leader in the 
young patriot Nathaniel Bacon. The refusal of the governor to support the people in the 
war with the Indians and to recognize their leader led to a rebellion against the govermrient 
itself Lord Berkeley was expelled from Jamestown and driv^en across the Chesapeake. The 
civil broil continued for some time with varying fo'tunes until Bacon fell sick and died. 
With his death the spirit of the insurrection failed and the militia was easily dispersed. For 
a while the populace continued rebellions, seeking to find another leader, but none was 
found, and the roj'alists soon triumphed. The latter discovered in Robert Beverly a captain 
who was as able on their side as Bacon had been on the side of the insurgents. The rebel- 



EPOCH OF DISCOVERY AND PLANTING 117 

lion was quickl}' suppressed and the popular cause was put under the ban of the governmenL 
Sir William Berkeley now loosed his passions on the defeated rebels. Fines and confis- 
cations became the order of the day. The governor fully avenged himself and his partisans 
for the wrongs which they had suffered. Twenty-two of the patriot leaders were seized and 
hanged with little form of law and with hardly opportunity to bid their friends farewelL 
Such was the vindictive retribution of the governor on his enemies that when the easy* 
going Charles II. heard of what was done he exclaimed, "Why, that old fool in that poor 
country has killed more men than I did for the murder of my father." 

Governor Berkeley's first administration ended with 1651; but after the restoration 
of Charles II. he was recommissioned and held office until 1676. His abilities -were such 
that notwithstanding his illiberal principles the colonial settlements were considerably 
extended during the long period of his rule. For the rest he set himself against all 
manner of progress. He was intolerant to the last degree and inflicted a severe persecu- 
tion on the Quakers. In one of his reports on the condition of the colony he is quoted 
assaying: "Thank God, there are no free schools nor printing-presses and I hope there 
will be none for a hundred years; for learning has brought disobedience and heresy, and 
sects into the world, and printing has divulged these and other libels. ' ' 

At the close of Berkeley's administration Lord Culpepper, to whom with Arlington 
the province had been granted in 1673, received the appointment of governor for life. 
The new executive arrived in 1680 and took upon himself the duties of his office. His 
administration, however, was of bad repute. His official conduct was marked with avarice 
and dishonesty. It was evident that he regarded the governorship as a speculative oppor- 
tunity. He accordingly adopted the policy of extortion and hard rulings until the mut- 
terings of rebellion were again heard among the settlements. 

They who hung upon the favors of Charles II. held by a precarious tenure. In 
course of time he repented of his rashness in giving away an American colony to worthless 
favorites. Seeking to amend his error he found in the vices and frauds of Culpepper a 
sufficient excuse to remove him from office and take away his patent. This was accord- 
ingly done and in 1684 Virginia from being a proprietary government, became a Royal 
province. Lord Howard of Effingham was appointed governor, and he in turn was suc- 
ceeded by Francis Nicholson. The administration of the latter was signalized by the 
founding of William and Mary College, so named in honor of the new King and Queen 
of England. This next to Harvard was the first institution of liberal learning planted in 
America. Here the boy Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence shall be 
educated. From these halls in the famous summer of 1776 shall be sent forth )-oung 
James Monroe, future President of the United States. 

During the first half of the eighteenth century Virginia pursued an even course of 
development. Her population steadily — but not rapidly — increased. Her position as oldest 
of the little American republics was recognized by her sister colonies. Her men began 
to be scholars and statesmen. At this epoch her Revolutionary heroes that were to be 
were born. The Virginian character was developed and matured for the exigencies of 
both war and peace. In the times of the Inter-colonial conflicts with New France in 
alliance with the Indians, Virginia suffered less by her position than did the great colonies 
of the North; but her patriotism never suffered in comparison, and when the premonitory 
thrills of National Independence shall at length tremble through the land, the call of 
country shall in no part be heard with profounder sympathy or more ready answer than in 
the Commonwealth of Virginia. 



CHAPTER VII. 




MASSACHUSETTS 

ASSING to New England we note with interest the pro- 
gress of the first Puritan settlement planted by the 
Pilgrims at Plymouth. At the beginning there was 
a stniggle most sharp for existence. The first 
winter had wellnigh proved fatal to the whole 
company who debarked from the Mayfloivcr. Hope, 
however, revived with the spring, and the first bird- 
song brought welcome to the wear)' heart of man. 
Though one-half of the colony had been swept oflf 
by disea.se and exposure the remainder went for- 
ward with courageous spirits to the work of destiny. 
The governor and his wife and son went down to 
the grave. But the Pilgrims had in them a soul of 
resolution, and they who survived rose from the 
snows of winter to plant and build and sing their 
hymns of thankfulness. 

One of the first exigencies of the colony had respect to 
the disposition of the natives. Captain Miles Standish was 
■ent out with his soldiers to gather information — to see in what manner the Indians would 
bear themselves in the presence of a European settlement. The army of New England 
consisted of six men besides the general. Deserted wigwams were found here and there; 
the smoke of campfires aro.se in the distance; savages were occasionally seen in the forest. 
These fled, however, at the approach of the English and Standish marched back unmolested 
to Plymouth. 

It was now the turn of the Indians to make an attempt at intercourse. A month after 
the adventure of Standish, a Wampauoag sachem named Samoset came into Plymouth, 
offered his hand and bade the strangers welcome. He could speak a broken English, for he 
had been with the whites at intervals since the time of the earlier voyages. He gave such 
account as he might of the number and strength of his people, and told the colonists of a 
great plague by which a few years before the country had been swept of its inhabitants. 
He attributed the present feebleness and dispirited condition of the red men to this malady 
which had destroyed their fathers. 

Soon afterwards another Indian named Squanto, who had been carried abroad by Hunt 
in 1614 and had learned to speak English, came to Phmouth and confinned what Samoset 
had said. Then with the early spring came Ma.ssasoit, the great sachem of tlie Wam- 
panoags, and with him a treaty was made which remained inviolate for fifty years. The 
compact was simple, providing that no injur}- should be done by white men to the Indians 
or by the Indians to them, and that all offiendcrs and criminals should be given up by 
either party for punishment according to the laws and usages of the two peoples. 

(iiS) 



EPOCH OF DISCOVERY AND PLANTING. 



119 




SAMOSET WELCOMING THE ENGLISH. 



A CHALLENGE BRAVELY MET. 

The effect of the treaty was sahitary. Nine of the leading tribes entered into like 
relations with the English, and acknowledged according to the limits of their understand- 
ings the sovereignty of the English king. Some of the sachems were suspicious and 

hostile. Standish in one 
instance was obliged to 
lead out his soldiers 
against a refractory chiet 
Canonicus, king of the 
Narragansetts, sent to 
Governor Bradford a 
I bundle of arrows wrapped 
in the skin of a rattle- 
snake ; but the governor 
stuffed the skin with 
powder and balls and sent 
it back as a significant 
answer to Canonicus. The 
latter would not receive 
it, but sent it on from 
tribe to tribe until it was 
finally returned, like an 
•naccepted challenge, to the governor. 

The first year after the planting of Plymouth was unfruitful and the colonists were 
brought to the point of starvation. A nev/ company of immigrants without provisions or 
stores arrived during the 
season and this circum- 
stance heightened the dis- 
tress, for all must be fed. 
The new comers remained 
over winter with the 
|)eople of Plymouth, and 
then crossed to the south 
side of Boston harbor, 
where they laid the 
foundations of Wey- 
mouth. But the settle- 
ment did not prosper. 
The Weymouth people, 
instead of engaging in 
necessary work, attempted 
t'o live by fraudulent trade 
with the Indians, and 
•'lien they were about to 
«taive abandoned their settlement and returned to England. 

The third year, 1623, brought a plentiful harvest, and the people of Plymouth began 
to have abundance. The Indians brought in the products of the chase and exchanged them 




TREATY BETWEhN GOVERNOR C.-VRVER AND MASSASOIT. 



I20 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

liberally for corn. Meanwhile the main body of pilgrims still tarried at Leyden. John 
Robinson, their leader, made strenuous efforts to bring his people to America, but the 
London adventurers who had managed the enterprise refused to furnish money or transpor- 
tation, and at the end of the fourth year there were only a hundred and eighty persons of 
the white race in New England. 

In 1624 Cape Ann was settled by a company of Puritans from Dorchester, England 
They were led by their minister, John White. The place chosen for the colony, however, 
was found to be unfavorable, and after two years the whole compau)- moved southward to 
a place called Naumkaeg, where they laid the foundations of Salem. Two years later a 
second company arrived at the same place, under conduct of John Endicott, who was 
chosen governor. The colonists obtained a patent from Charles I., and the settlements 
were incorporated under the name of the governor and Company of Massachusetts Bay in 
New England. In the same summer two hundred additional immigrants arrived, some of 
whom settled at Plymouth, while the rest removed to the peninsula on the north side 
of Boston harbor and laid the foundations of Charlestown. In 1630 about three hundred 
of the best Puritan families in England came to America under the direction of John 
Winthrop, who was chosen governor. Though a royalist by birth, he cast in his lot with 
tlie Republican party. Himself an Episcopalian, he chose to suffer affliction with the 
Puritans. Surrounded with affluence and comfort at home, he left all to share the destiny 
of the persecuted pilgrims in America. 

FOUNDING OF BOSTON AND A DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT. 

Of the new comers of 1630 a part settled at Salem. Others paused at Chailestcwn 
and Watertown. Others founded Roxbur)- and Dorchester. The governor himself, with 
a few of the leading families, crossed the harbor to the peninsula called Shawmut and 
there laid the foundation of Boston, destined to be the capital of the colony and the 
metropolis of New England. 

As in Virginia, so in IMassachusetts the civil life of the people tended from the first to 
Democratic liberty. As early as 1634 a representative form of government was established 
by the Puritan colonists. This work was accomplished against the strenuous opposition of 
the ministers. On election day the voters to the number of three or four hundred were 
called together, and the learned Cotton preached powerfully against the evils of Republican- 
ism. The assembly listened attentively and then went on with the election 1 To make 
the reform complete, a ballot-box was substituted for the old method of public voting. 
The restriction on the right of suffrage, by which only church members were pennitted to 
vote, was the only remaining bar to a truly Democratic government in New England. 

The year 1635 was the great year of immigration. Three thousand new colonists ar- 
rived. The Puritans abroad had come to see that it was worth while to live in a country 
where the principles of freedom were spreading with such rapidity. The new immigrants 
were under the leadership of Hugh Peters and Sir Henry Vane. For a sea.son the settle- 
ments around Massachusetts bay were overcrowded. It seemed that there would not be 
room for the incoming immigrants from Europe. The more adventurous soon began to 
plunge into the wilderness and to find new places of abode. One little company of twelve 
families, under leadership of Simon Willard and Peter Bulkeley marched through the 
Woods luitil they reached some open meadowlands, about sixteen miles distant from Boston, 
and there laid the foundations of Concord. Later in the same year another branch colony 
of sixty persons made their way westward to the Connecticut river, and in the following 
spring founded Windsor, Hartford and Wethersfield. 



EPOCH OP DISCOVERY AND PLANTING. 



121 



The Puritans brought with them to America religious toleration — for themselves ! 
Strange that they should not have discerned that the thing needed was toleration for others ! 
But the vices of bigotry and narrow-mindedness had been inherited by them from the 
middle ages and could not be cast out. As a consequence religious dissensions appeared in 
the colony from the first years of its planting. The mind of this people was deeply con- 
cerned with religious questions. To debate issues which were impossible of decision was- 
ithe food and drink of the fathers and mothers of New England. The conversation of those 
who built houses was about the abstruse questions of theology. The sermons preached by 
the ministers had to pass the ordeal of review and criticism. Under such circumstances 
the more audacious minds tended strongly to a larger religious liberty. 

Such persons, however, were under surveillance and ban of the more orthodox, and 
particularly of the preachers. It was this condition of affairs that led to the expulsion of 
Roger Williams from Salem. 

FOUNDING OF A WOMAN'S REPUBLIC. 
The dominant class of Puritans understood religious freedom to mean the privilege of 
others to have the same religious beliefs and practices as themselves. Most prominent among 

those heretical characters at Boston who were said to 
be "as bad as Roger Williams or worse," was Mrs. 
Anne Hutchinson, a woman of great gifts, who had come 
over in the ship with Sir Henry Vane. Moved by the 
spirit within her, she claimed the privilege of speaking 
at the weekly meetings. This was refused by the elders. 
"Women have no business at these assemblies, and 
most of them need their tongues bridled at times like 
common scolds," said they. Hereupon Anne Hutchinson 
became the champion of her sex, and denoimced the 
ministers for defrauding women of the benefits of the 
gospel. She called them Pharisees, and was in turn 
declared by them to be unfit for the society of Christians. 
She with a large number of friends was banished from 
Massachusetts — sent forth to live or to die as best they 
might. The exiles made their way first to the home 
of Roger Williams. Miantonomoh, chief of the Narragansetts made them a gift of the 
beautiful island called Rhode Island, where in March of 1641 they founded a little 
republic of their own. 

While intolerance darkened the Puritan character, many virtues illumined it. It was 
what an artist might call a chiaroscuro^ in which on the whole the light shone through the 
darkness. While the Puritans stooped to the character of persecutors for opinion's sake, 
they rose in many particulars to the level of philanthropists. In 1636 the general court of 
the colony appropriated between one and two thousand dollars to found and endow a col- 
lege. The measure met with popular favor and the enterprise went forward to success. 
Newtown was selected as the sight for the proposed school. Plymouth and Salem gave 
gifts to help the enterprise, and the villages in the Connecticut valley sent contributions of 
corn and wampum. In 1638 John Harvard, a young minister of Charlestown, being about 
to die, bequeathed his library and nearly five thousand dollars to the institution. To per- 
petuate the memory of this benefactor, the new school was named Harvard College ; and 
in honor of the place where many of the leading men of Massachusetts had been educated, 
the name of Newtown was changed to Cambridge. 




A SCOLD GAGGED. 



122 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



SETTING UP THE PRINTING PRESS. 

The printing-press quickly followed. In 1638 Stephen Daye, an English printer, came 
to Boston bringing a font of types and in the following year set np his press at Cambridge. 
His first publication was an almanac calculated for New England and the year 1639. I" 
the next year Thomas Welde and John Eliot — two ministers of Roxbury — and Richard 
Mather of Dorchester translated the Hebrew Psalms into English verse, and published their 
rude work in a volume of three hundred pages — the first book printed on this side of the, 
Atlantic. 

All the elements of progress followed the Puritans to their American exile. The set- 
tlements flourished and multiplied. New England was becoming rapidly populated. Well- 
nigh fifty towns and villages dotted the face of the country. It was estimated that during 
the first twenty years from the 
founding of Plymouth a million 
dollars were spent in .settling and 
developing the new State. Material 
prosperity came also. Enterprises 
of many kinds were rife. Manu- 
factures, commerce and the arts /«, 
soon sprang up. William Stephens, 
a shipbuilder who had come with 
the immigrants of 1629, built and 
launched an American vessel of 
four hundred tons burden. Before 
1640 two hundred and ninety-eight 
emigrant ships had anchored in 
Massachusetts Bay. The census of 
the year just referred to showed a 
population for the State of twenty- 
one thousand two hundred. 

Political unity is a notion which \^ ■ \ "X^ 

has always appealed with great the first printing press 
force to a certain type of mind. brought to America. 
Segregation, isolation, individuality, localism, appear to 
such in the nature of chaos and confusion. Very early in 
the history of the New England settlements the question of uniting them under one 
civil fonn began to be agitated. In 1639 and again in 1643 a practical measure was 
brought forward, first in the Assembly of Massachusetts and afterwards in those of the 
neighboring colonies looking to the union of all. The act was adopted, by the 
terms of which Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, Connecticut and New Haven were joined 
in a loose confederacy, called the United Colonies of New England. The chief 
authority was vested in a General Assembly or Congress composed of two representa- 
tives from each colony. These delegates were chosen annually at an election where all the 
freemen voted by ballot. Since the colonies were under the general authority of the 
English King, no President was provided for other than the Speaker of the Assembly ; and 
he was without executive authority powers. liach community retained as before its own 
local goverament and all subordinate questions of legislation were reserved to the individual 
members of the union. 




EPOCH OF DISCOVERY AND PLANTING. 



123 




FIRST CHURCH ERECTED IN HART- 
FORD, CONNECTICUT, 1638. 



The sentiments of the people of Massachusetts with respect to the English Revolution 
•were very different from those of the people of Virginia. The latter were by their antece- 
dents and habits in sympathy with the King's party, while the people of Massachusetts 
were for opposite reasons attached to the Republican and Parliamentary cause. The friends 
of the Puritans had made their way into the English House of Commons, and the peril tc 
the throne was to be feared from those who were in alliance of principle and sentiment with 

the colonists of New England. Throughout the Civil Wai 
the American Puritans sustained with voice and sympathy 
the Revolutionary party. Distance, however, modified the 
feelings of the people of New England, and when Chailes 
I. was brought to the block they whose fathers had been 
exiled by his father lamented his tragic fate, and preserved 
the memory of his virtues. 

Cromwell understood perfectly the temper and senti- 
ments of the American colonists. He remained from first 
to last their steadfast friend. We have seen how even in 
Virginia the over-loyal people of that province found the 
Protector to be just as well as severe, but the people cf New 
England were his special favorites. To them he was bound 
by all the ties of political and religious sympathy. For 
more than ten years, while in many instances his hand rested heavily upon the people of 
the home country, Cromwell, though he might have been the oppressor, remained the 
benefactor of the English in America. 

PERSECUTION OF THE QUAKEWS. 
In was in July of 1656 that the first Quakers arrived at Boston. Among these were 
Ann Austin and Mary Fisher. The introduction of the plague would have occasioned less 
alarm ! Strange does it seem to us, and stranger will it seem to posterity, that such 
innocent enthusiasts could have been regarded with so 
great antipathy and dread. The two women were caught 
and searched for marks of witchcraft. Their trunks were 
broken open, their books burned by the hangman, and 
they themselves thrown into prison. After several weeks' 
confinement they were brought forth and driven beyond 
the limits of the colony. Others came, and they too 
were whipped and exiled. As the law against the 
Quakers was made more crael and prescriptive, fresh 
victims rushed forward to brave its terrors. So great was 
the public alarm that the Assembly of the United Colonies 
was convened, and Massachusetts was advised to pro- 
nounce the penalty of death against the fanatical dis- 
turbers of the public peace. In 1659 four persons were 




hanged with- 



FIRST SCENE OF KING PHILIP'S WAR. 



arrested, brought to trial, condemned and 

out mercy. Nor did the fact that one of these was a woman move the hearts of the 

persecuting judges. 

The era of the English commonwealth drew to a close. Charles II., long fugitive 
from the kingdom of his fathers, was restored to the throne, and on the 27th of July, l<f ^, 
the tidings of the great things done in England reached Boston. It was now the tui of 



124 



PEOPLPVS HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATEvS. 



MILiS j St lU 

/ V^nrookfWU\ 1 




13 



those who had overthrown the monarchy and trampled on the residue to fly for their lives. 
In the same ship that brought intelligence of the Restoration came Edward Whalley and 
William Goffe, two of the judges who had passed sentence of death on Charles I. Goveruoi 
Endicott received them with courtesy, but the agents of the British Government followed 
in hot pursuit. 

The two regicides, or king-killers, as they were called, were aided by the people of 
•Boston to escape from the officers. They made their way to New Haven, where for many 
weeks they lay concealed, no one, not even the Indians, accepting the reward which wa» 
'offered for their apprehension. At last the exiles reached the village of Hadley, in the 
valley of the Connecticut, and there found seclusion and rest during the remainder of theii 
lives. W.hen, in the time of King Philip's war, the village of Hadley was attacked by the 
savages, the venerable Goffe came forth from his hiding 
place, rallied the flying people and directed the defence. 
Then he went back to his covert and was seen no more. 

The outbreak in 1664 of a war between England and 
Holland furnished opportiniity to Charles II. to carr\' out 
one of his cherished plans. This was the recovery or re- 
clamation of the American colonies from their proprietan,-, 
chartered and semi-independent condition to a complete second scene of king philip's war. 
subordination to the English crown. Circumstances favored the project, for it became 
necessary at the beginning of the war to send a British fleet to America in order to reduce 
the Dutch colonies on the Hudson. This annament might easily be used by tlie 
King in the work of reestablishing absolutism over those other colonies on our coast which 
owed their political existence to charters and guarantees given by former kings. 

In furtherance of his purpose Charles II., or his minister, sent four royal commissioners 
to America to sit in judgment upon all questions of dispxite and intercolonial controversy 
that might arise among the colonies. It was thought that the acceptance by the Americans 
of such a court of arbitration would lead to a recognition of the royal authority in other and 

purely political matters. The commissioners came to 
Boston in July of 1664, but the Americans were quick to 
discover the meaning of the thing done, and gave the royal 
judges so cold a reception that they were soon glad to 
leave the country. 

KING PHILIP'S WAR, AND SIEGE OF BROOKFIELO. 

The time came when the expansion of the white settle- 
ments and the reluctance of the natives to retire from their 
ancient hunting grounds brought on a conflict of great 
severitv between the two peoples. The Wampanoag Indians 

THIRD SCENE OF KING PHILIP'S WAR. ^ , ' , , -i i ... ,.-.-,. t^, ... 

lound an able leader in their great chieitain. King rhihp, 
and for awhile they held their own against the superior discipline, steadier courage and 
'better weapons of the English. 

All the causes leading to King Philip's war are not fully known, many having been 
assigned, but it may be reasonably inferred from that chief's actions that it grew out of 
jealousy at the encroachment of the whites upon his domains. War would have btoken 
out sooner had not the English presented so strong a front and watched with unrela.xed 
vigilance every movement of the Indians. But Philip was a cunning chief and awaited his 
opportunity, all the while augmenting his forces and completing his preparations. At 



MILES I \ 



(4 ^ IJi^fficL-fn.i 





,-y-^^^r/&^ 



EPOCH OF DISCOVERY AND PLANTING. 



125 



length a friendly Indian, named Sausaman, who was known to be on intimate terms with 
both his own people and the whites, was murdered by three hostiles who were soon after 
apprehended and being brought to trial before a jury of six whites and as many Indians 
were convicted and shot. This incident precipitated the war which had for some years 
been expected. Philip now assembled his warriors and took up a position in a woods neai 
where the city of Bristol now stands. Here the Indians rendezvoused for a while, sending 
their women and children to Narragansett, until their full force was mustered and ready foi 
the conflict. 

The 24th of June, 1675, the whites spent in fasting and praj'ers that the threatened 
horror of an Indian war might be averted, but their supplications were in vain. Three 

days later while the 
people were returning 
from church in Swansea 
they were fired on by 
Indians and three were 
killed, which murder- 
ous outrage was fol- 
lowed by the burning 
of bams and cabins. 
Several villages were 
attacked in turn by the 
sivages until soon all 
f Plymouth colony 
was in terror. The 
Nipmuck Indians went 
on the war-path in 
August and when 
Captain Hutchinson 
conference with the 
company 



with twenty men sought 
Indians he was ambushed and eight of his 
fell before the deadly fire of the savages. The 
survivors fled and contrived to reach Brookfield fol- 
lowed by their foes. Tlie village, consisting of a 
few log cabins, directly became the scene of a terrible 
conflict. Every person able to handle a gun flew to 
the defence of their homes and prepared to resist the several hundred Indians that 
rushed down upon them with ear-splitting yells, bearing musket or bow in one hand 
and a blazing torch in the other. In a very short time every cabin was on fire save 
the single one in which Captain Hutchinson and his men had taken refuge, who 
from their place of protection poured forth a deadly hail upon their assailants. The desper- 
ate fight went on with small advantage to the Indians several of whom fell before the well 
directed aim of the besieged. Efforts were made by the whites to break through the line of 
savages, or to send out messengers for relief, but it was not until after the failure of several 
desperate attempts that one brave fellow succeeded in passing the lines under cover of dark- 
ness and rushed oflf to Providence to spread the alarm. For three days and nights the com- 
bat continued, during which time the dry clap-board roof of the cabin was fired several 
times by arrows wrapped in blazing flax, but as often brave men broke a hole through the 





(1261 



INDIAN ATTACK ON BKOOKFIKLD. 



EPOCH OF DISCOVERY AND PLANTING. 



127 



roof and put out the flames. On the evening of the third day, however, the Indians seized 
a wagon and loading it with wood and flax set the whole on fire and then by means of poles 
pushed it against the building. At the moment when their destniction appeared inevitable 
the sinking hearts of the whites were lifted into joy by a down-pouring rain that extinguished 
the flames and so saturated everything that all further danger from fire was removed. No 
sooner were they relieved from this terrible extremity than the shouts of friends were heard 
rushing to the rescue. Major Willard, of Boston, with fifty men, had been apprised of the 
siege at Brookfield, and with all possible haste rushed to the succor of the whites, whose 
ammunition and energies were by this time almost completely spent. So impetuous was 
his charge upon the Indians that they were dispersed like chaff, and at the close of the 
engagement the bodies of eighty savages were found dead around the log-cabin. 

The struggle continued for nearly a year and was attended with great loss of life and 
destruction of property. But at last the Indians were subdued and Philip himself hunted 
down and killed near his old home at Mount Hope, in Rhode Island. 

After the rejection of the royal judges the project of Charles II. to regain absolute con- 
trol of the American colonies was allowed to slumber for several years. With the accession 
of James II., however, 
the old charter of Mas- 
sachusetts was formally 
revoked. All the colonies 
between Nova Scotia and 
Narragansett Bay were 
consolidated into one and 
Joseph Dudley received 
the appointment of gover- 
nor-general, or president. 
New England was not 
able for the time openly 
to resist this great en- 
croachment on popular 
liberty. The colonial 
assembly was dissolved by 
its own act and the 
members returned sul- 
lenly to their homes. 
In the following winter Governor Dudley was superseded by Sir Edmond Andros, who had 
been appointed royal governor of New England. Under his administration Massachusetts 
and her sister colonies lost their liberties. All sympathy ceased between the govennnent 
and the people. Andros and his rule became extremely odious and when the news of the 
expulsion of King James from the throne of England was borne to Boston the royal 
governor was visited with a like fate at the hands of the American colonists. On the 1 8th 
of April, 1689, the citizens of Boston and Charlestown rose in open rebellion. Andros and 
his minions perceived at a glance that resistance was in vain and they attempted to escape. 
The people, however, seized them and cast them into prison. The insurrection i,pread 
rapidly throughout New England and in less than a month every colony had regained its 
former liberties. 

The European wars of the seventeenth century in which England, France and Holland 




DESTRUCTION OF SCHENECTADY. 



128 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

were involved, spread into the respective colonies of those States in America. That conflict 
which was ended by the treaty of Ryswick involved the English possessions in New 
England and those of France in Nova Scotia in a serions war wliich continued for nearly 
eight years. The results, however, were indecisive, and in 1697, when the treaty was con- 
eluded between the parent kingdoms, the boundary lines of their respective colonies in 
America were established as before. 

DREADFUL EPISODES OF THE INDIAN WARS. 

But some of the bloody incidents which preceded this settlement and the causes leading 
thereto, may be here profitably recounted : The wars between France and England in 
Europe naturally involved the colonists of America. It was these quarrels which led 
primarily to what is known in history as King William's War, from 1689 to 1697 ; Queen 
Anne's War, 1702 to 1713 ; King George's War, 1744 to 1748, and the French and Indian 
War, 1754 to 1763. While there were occasional pauses in the strifes they were no more 
than truces and the four wars may properly be merged into one continual struggle 
wherein the question to be decided was which should rule in the New World, th>: English 
or the French. This contention led to the most savagely horrible massacres anc' thrilling 
episodes that deface the annals of American history-. 

In all the early wars the Indians took an important part, and were almost invariably 
allies of the French. Had it not been for these barbarous foes the English would have 
gained an impregnable ascendancy in the New World fifty years before they did ; but having 
such wily and numerous enemies to contend with, whose tactics were stealth, treachery, sur- 
prise, assassination and merciless slaughter, the English settlers were harassed until life 
became a constant battle, and horror was in hourly expectation. The school-house, 
where children gathered ; the church, where families repaired to worship ; the field, 
where the fanner bent to his toil, were all too familiar scenes of pitiless murder. To 
guard against attacks of the Indians houses were protected by palisades, while every village 
had its blockhouse of refuge, and men went everywhere armed in preparation for the 
fray. But however great the precaution human life was exceedingly cheap and every 
day had its bloody incident. 

In the depth of the winter of 1690 a party of French and Indians suddenly descended 
upon the town of "Schenectady and under the cover of darkness fell upon the unsus- 
pecting inhabitants. Bursting in the doors of the houses men, women and children 
were dragged from their beds and tomahawked and the dwellings were then fired. A 
few of the miserable people contrived to escape, and half clothed made their way 
through a driving snow-storm to Albany, where a half dozen died from the exposure 
two days later. 

In June of the preceding year ten squaws secured lodging in the five garrisoned 
houses of Dover, New Hampshire. The people gave them hospitable entertainment, 
having no suspicion of the treachery intended. During the night the squaws, two in 
each house, stealthily arose and unbarred the doors to admit the waiting savages with- 
out. A terrible massacre of people followed, from wliich only three persons managed to 
escape. 

Some years later (1697) a band of Indians attacked Haverhill, Massachusetts, mur- 
dered twenty of the people and carried off as many more women and children, to whom 
was reser\'ed a fate no less terrible than death. At the time of the attack a Mr. Dustin 
was working in a field near by and realizing the import of the excitement seized his 
gun and leaping on his horse rode with all speed to the succor of his wife and seven 



EPOCH OF DISCOVERY AND PLANTING. 129 

rfiildren. By extraordinary braverj' he held the Indians at bay and covered the escape of 
six of his children, but his wife was ill in bed at the time and she, with an infant and 
nurse, was made captive. While the Indians were hurrying their prisoners away Mrs. 
Dustin's babe began to cr)-, whereupon a murderous chief seized it by the feet and 
dashed out its brains. 

The miserable captives were forced to march at the top of their speed and as fast any 
became exhausted they were despatched with a tomahawk and their bodies left to mark the 
route over which they had travelled to their death. 




MR. DDSTIN COVERING THE RETREAT OF HIS CHILDREN. 

HEROISM OF MRS. DUSTIN. 

Mrs. Dustin, though weak from her illness, was a woman of astounding courage 

and power of will. She and the nurse held out when the strength of many who appeared 

much strono-er failed and survived the march of one hundred fifty miles. Learning that 

ihe captives were to be tortured when their destination was reached she resolved to take 

9 



I30 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

the most desperate chances to effect her escape. By this time the Indians had divided up 
into small parties, the prisoners being distributed so that to guard them required little 
watchfulness. ]Mrs. Dustin, her nurse and an English boy of fourteen years were given in 
charc^e of ten Indian warriors and a squaw. Thinking that their captives were about 
exhausted by their weary march the Indians relaxed their vigilance, and being tired them- 
selves one night they all fell asleep, each probably thinking that the other was on guard. 
Seeincr the opportunity for which she had been watching Mrs. Dustin aroused the nurse and 
bov and each seizing a tomahawk they despatched the sleeping Indians. But not fully satis- 
fied yet with this brave effort that gave her liberty she glutted her vengeance by scalpmg 
her victims and with these bloody trophies she proceeded to a river bank where she found 
a canoe and in it returned to Haverhill, where she was soon afterwards reunited with 

In 1704 the same horrifying scenes that had desolated Haverhill were re^nacted at Deer- 
field Massachusetts. While the snow lay four feet deep neariy four hundred French and 
' ' Indians surrounded the 

place and watching their 
opportunity they rushed 
on the place while the 
sentinels were off their 
guard and made a holo- 
caust of the inhabitants. 
Fort}'-seven bodies of the 
murdered men, women 
and children were con- 
sumed in the flames, while 
one hundred and twelve 
captives were taken and 
made to travel fifty miles 
through the deep snow. 

DUSTIN KILLING HER CAPTORS. Oue by ouc they fell ex. 

hausted on the wav and their brains dashed out with the ever ready tomahawk. One of 
the 'captives, daughter of a minister named Williams, saw her mother thus cnielly 
slaughtered, yet being herself saved from a like fate by the favors of a chief she lived to 
become the Indian's wife, and in after years visited her friends in Deerfie d. In he mean- 
time she had embraced the Catholic faith, but so channed was she with tae wild ife of the 
savage that she refused to abandon her dusky husband and continued faithful to him until 
her death. ^^^ ^^^^^ witchcraft DELUSION. 

We here come to another strange paragraph in the histor>' of primitive New England. 
The reader of historical narrative is obliged at intervals to turn from the stately and 
showy progress of public affairs to consider the occult movement of the human mind, to 
note its diseases and delusions and to mark with astonishment the most inexplicable crimes 
which it is capable of committing in the days of its delirium. Only two hundred years 
ago the fathers of New England were subject to that strange intellectual and mora 
malady which resulted in the atrociries of the Salem witchcraft. The delusion broke out 
in that part of Salem ^allage after^vards called Danvers, and was traceable to the animosity 
of the minister, Samuel Parris against George Burroughs, a former pastor of the chtirch at 
that place. By Parris the charge of witchcraft was brought against several of the friend* 




MRS. 



EPOCH OF DISCOVERY AND PLANTING. 



131 



and adherents of Burroughs and these were imprisoned and brought to trial before Stough- 
ton, deputy-governor of the colon}'. Parris was in correspondence with the leading 
ministers of Boston and he procured the assistance of the celebrated Cotton Mather in the 
prosecution of the alleged witches. Mather undertook the cause and was the person 
chiefly responsible for the horrors and crimes that ensued. Twenty innocent people, 
including several women, were condemned and put to death. Fifty-five others were tor« 
tured into the confession of abominable falsehoods. A hundred and fifty others lay in 
prison awaiting their fate. Still two hundred others were accused or suspected, and ruin 
seemed to impend over New England. 

Fortunately for mankind, it is in the nature of such atrocities — diseased as they are — 
to cure themselves by reaction. At the very- crisis of this delusion the reaction came and 
the people arose and righted themselves. Notwithstanding the vociferous clamor and 
denunciation of Mather, the witch tribunals were overthrown. The General Assembly 
convened in October and the atrocious court which Governor Phipps had appointed to sit 
at Salem was at once dismissed. The spell was dissolved. The thraldom of the public 
mind was broken. Reason shook off the terrors that oppressed it. The prison doors were 
opened and the poor victims of superstition, malice and delusion went forth free. 
WAR OF THE SPANISH SUCCESSION, OR QUEEN ANNE'S WAR. 

When the War of the Spanish Succession, so called, came on in Europe, the American 
colonies as dependencies of the foreign Powers became involved in the conflicts. The 
French settlements of Canada 
and the English settlements 
of Massachusetts, Connecticut 
and New York went to war 
because the parent kingdoms 
were trying to determine with (TT 
the sword who should occupy ' fe 
the Spanish throne. The 
Canadian Jesuits instigated the 
Indians to take up arms 
against the English colonies 
Durino" the vear i~0'?— 04. the Oi,d witch hoi se — sctNt ui ex\mi-vations at salem 

havoc and desolation were spread by the savages along the exposed frontiers of Con- 
necticut and New York. 

As the war dragged on, a great expedition was planned by Massachusetts for the 
capture of Port Royal from the French. In 1707 a fleet bearing a thousand soldiers sailed 
from Boston harbor for Acadia. But Baron Castin who commanded the French garrison 
of Port Royal conducted the defence with so much skill and courage that the English 
were obliged to abandon the under«;aking. Massachusetts gained nothing but discourage- 
ment and debt from her costly an'l disastrous expedition ; but she resolved to prosecute the 
war with redoubled energ}'. 

A second armament was fitted out in 17 10. A squadron of thirty-six vessels bearing 
four regiments of troops sailed from Boston to Port Royal and began a siege. The gar- 
rison was now weak and the FretAch commander had not the ability of his predecessor. 
The supplies ran out; famine came and after a feeble defence of eleven days the place 
surrendered at discretion. All of No^'^ Scotia passed by this conquest to the English crown. 





-— s u 



H 



113^J 



EPOCH OF DISCOVERY Al^D PLANTIN 



Vj. 



133 



The flag of Great Britian was raised over the conquered fortress and the name of Port 
Royal gave place to Annapolis, in honor of Queen Anne. 

With the English Revolution of 1688 and the accession of William and Mary, the 
people of Massachusetts hoped for a bettennent of their political condition. The event, 
however, did not justify the expectation. It was found that King William was not dis- 
posed to relinquish the claims of his predecessors in the matter of a royal government 
over the colonies. This policy of sending out governors from England was continued; but 
the officers who were sent were received with dislike by the people, and there was constant 
variance of interests and views between the citizens and the governors. Phipps and 
his administration were heartily disliked. Governor Shute was equally unpopular. 
Burnett, who succeeded him and Belcher .afterward, were only tolerated because they could 
not be shaken off 

In such a condition of affairs the people either find or make a way according to their 
wishes. The opposition to the royal governors in New England took the fonn of a con- 
troversy about their salaries. The General Assembly of Massachusetts insisted that the 
governor and his councillers should be paid in proportion to the importance of their 
several offices and for actual service only; but the royal commissioners gave to each officer 
a fixed salary which was frequently out of all proportion to the rank and services of the 
recipient. After many years of antagonism the difficulty was adjusted with a compromise 
In which the advantage was wholly on the side of the people. 

We thus reach the middle of the eighteenth century, at which time the common inter- 
ests of the American colonies began to prevail over their prejudices and to bring them 
into closer union. The circumstances which led to a community of action and finally to 
the establishment of a common government will be narrated hereafter. The danger which 
came to all by the French and Indian War was the most powerful single cause which over- 
came the spirit of localism and tended to the union of all the colonies. For the present 
— as in the case of Virginia and Massachusetts — we take up the progress of the Dutch 
settlements on the Hudson and follow their history down to the time when it merged 
In the common histor}- of the country. 




CHAPTER VIII. 




NEW NETHERLANO. 

OR ten years after the establishment of the first settlers 
on Manhattan Island New Amsterdam was governed by 
Directors appointed by the Dutch East India Company. 
In 1623 a new colony of thirty families arrived at Man- 
hattan. The immigrants, called Walloons, were Dutch 
Protestant refugees from Flanders. They were of the 
same religious party with the Huguenots of France and 
the Puritans of England. They came to America to find 
repose from the persecutions to which tlie>' were sub- 
jected in their own country. Cornelius May was the 
leader of these immigrants, the greater number of whom 
settled with their friends at New Amsterdam; but the 
captain with a party of fifty sailed down the coast of 
New Jersey, and entered and explored the bay of Dela- 
ware. On his return in the following )-ear he was made first governor of New Netherland. 
The official duties of May were such as belonged to the superintendent of a trading 
post. In 1625 he was succeeded in office by William Verhulst. Meanwhile other Dutch 
ships came to Manhattan Island bringing herds of cattle, sheep and swine. In January 
of 1626 Peter Minuit, of Wesel, was regularly appointed by the Dutch West India 
Company as governor of New Netherland. The population increased, and the census of 
1628 showed two hundred and seventy persons in the colony. The industrj' of the first 
settlers was directed to the fur trade. The Dutch boats and ships were found in all the bays, 
inlets and rivers between Rhode Island and the Delaware. 

As the colony increased in strength and influence, the West India Company prepared a 
new scheme of colonization. The corporation, in the year 1629, prepared what was called 
a Charter of Privileges, under which a class of proprietors called Patrons were authorized 
to possess and colonize the country. Each patron might select for himself anywhere in 
New Netherland a tract of land not more than sixteen miles in length and of a breadth to 
be determined by the location. In accordance with the provisions of the charter, five 
estates were soon established. Three of them lying contiguous, embraced a district of 
twenty-four miles in the valley of the Hudson above and below Fort Orange. The fourth 
was laid out by IMichael de Pauw on Slaten Island, and the fifth and most important in- 
cluded the .southern half of the present State of Delaware. At the beginning, success 
seemed to attend the plans of the West India Company as developed in the Charter of 
Privileges. 

It was at this date that the Swedes first began to plant settlements on the American 
coast. Four of the European nations — Spain, France, England and Holland — had now 
succeeded in establishing permanent colonies. Sweden was the fifth, and the great 
King Gustavus Adolphus was the patron of the enterprise. It was in 1626 that a 
company of Swedish merchants was organized to promote the emigration of a colou)- to 

(134) 



EPOCH OF DISCOVERY AND PLANTING. 



135 



America. For this purpose a large capital was subscribed, to which the King himself con- 
tributed four hundred thousand dollars. But before the purpose of the company could be 
carried out, Gustavus Adolphus was killed in battle, and the work was transmitted to the 
great Swedish minister Oxenstiem. The charter which the late King had given to the 
company was renewed, and after four years of preparation the enterprise was brought to a 
successful issue. 

CONFLICT BETWEEN THE SWEDES AND THE DUTCH. 

The first company of Swedes and Finns left the harbor of Stockholm in 1637. In the 
following February' the colony reached the Delaware Bay in safety. To the men 
of the North the new country rose like a vision of beauty. They called Cape 
Henlopen the Point of Paradise. The lands on the west side of the bay and up the river 
as far as the Falls of Trenton were honorably purchased of the Indians, and in honor of 
their native land the name of New Sweden was given to the territory. 

The reader will easily perceive the prior claims which other nations had upon the 
country thus occupied by the Swedish colony. 
The first to assert such a claim was the 
Dutch governor of New Netherland. The 
Swedes were notified that they were intruders 
and that they must submit to the authority of 
Holland. Hostilities broke out, and in 1651 
the Swedish colony was overpowered and 
reduced to subjection by the Dutch. 

The names of several of the early gover- 
nors of New Netherland are known to history ; 
but the greatest of them all was the soldierly 
Peter Stuyvesant, who came out under com- 
mission of the West India Company in the 
year 1647. His influence over the colonists 
of Manhattan Island and the Hudson valley 
was salutar}', and the Dutch State began to 
improve under his administration; but the 
progress was slow. As late as the middle of 
the century the better parts of Manhattan 
Island were still uncultivated, though divided peter stuyvesant. 

among the Dutch farmers. Central Park was as yet a forest of oaks and chestnuts. 

We have already spoken of the conquest of the little State of New Sweden, on the 
Delaware. Stuyvesant regarded this province as a part of his dominions. Not much was to 
be feared from the Swedes, for they were only as one to ten of the Dutch. There was a dis- 
position among the former, however, to establish and maintain independence. They built 
a fort on the present site of Newcastle; but this the Swedes, under Governor Rising, soon 
captured. The circumstances gave excuse to Stuyvesant for the invasion of New Sweden, 
and in 1655 he marched at the head of six hundred soldiers against that colony. Resist- 
ance on the part of the Swedes was useless. Their fortified places were taken, and the flag 
of Holland raised instead of that of Sweden. 

The disposition of Charles II. to reclaim the chartered and proprietary governments of 
the American colonies has already been mentioned. In March of 1664 that monarch issued to 
his brother James, Duke of York and Albany, two extensive patents for American territory. 




1 



136 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



The first grant iucluded the countn- from the Kennebec to the St. Croix river, and the second 
embraced the whole region between the Connecticut and the Delaware. Without regard to 
the claims and settlements made by the Dutch West India Company under the authorit\- of 
Holland, and with no respect for the wishes and interests of the Dutch people who had 
populated Manhattan and the valley of the Hudson, and disregarding even the voice of his 
own Parliament, Charles II. in a single hour despoiled a sister kingdom of a well-earned 
province in America. 

THE DUTCH CONQUERED BY THE ENGLISH. 

This done the English king gave orders for taking possession of the countr>^ granted 
to his brother the Duke. James himself made haste to secure the benefits and honors' 
which were conceded by the new patents. An armament was sent out under command of 
Richard Nicolls, whom the Duke of York had named as governor. On his arrival at New 
Amsterdam with his squadron Nicolls called on Governor Stuyvesant to surrender. The 
latter was justly angered at the arrogance of this demand, and tried to induce his Dutch 
councillors to declare war. He stormed at them and at the indifferent people of Manhattan 
with all the passion of a patriot, but they would not fight. 

Doubtless the Dutch were not wanting in courage, but their property interests were 
imperilled, and they chose to save their homes at the expense of patriotism. On the 8th of 
September, 1664, New Amsterdam surrendered and New Netherland ceased to exist. Tiie 
English flag was raised over the fort and the name of New York was substituted for that of 
New Amsterdam and as the name of the whole province. Two weeks afterwards Fort 
Orange on the Hudson was surrendered and received the name of Albany, in commemora- 
tion of the Duke's second title. The Swedish and Dutch settlements on the Delaware also 
capitulated. England triumphed over her rivals. The conquest was complete. The 
supremacy of Great Britain in central North America was henceforth firmly established. 
From the northeastern extremity of IMaine to the southern limits of Georgia every mile of 
the American coast acknowledged the dominion of the English flag and crown. 

With this revolution of 1664 we come to a succession of English governors who held 
rule in New York to the close of the centuiy Of these Richard Nicolls remained in office 
for three years, when he was superseded by Lord Lovelace. The latter left behind him a 
reputation for tyranny and arbitrary rule. He held authority until 1673, when the counter- 
revolution of thatj-ear occurred. The Dutch, having gone to war with England, sent out a 
squadron to reclaim their American colony. For the nonce the expedition was successful. 
New York was seized and the supremacy of Holland Avas for a brief season restored in the 
country between the Connecticut and the Marj-land. In the following year Charles II. was 
obliged by Parliament to make a treaty of peace with the Dutch government. Tliis was 
done, but the treaty contained a clause for the restoration of all conquests made during tlie 
war. New York thus reverted to England and the rights of the Duke of York, whatever 
they were, were again confirmed over the province. The Duke, however, took the precau- 
tion to make his authority doubly secure by obtaining from his brother, the King, a new 
patent confinnatory of the former charter. 

Reference has already been made to the arrival of Sir Edniond Andros as governor of 
New York. Andros attempted to establish his authority, but the people resisted him to the 
verge of insurrection. He hoped to obtain recognition as governor of all the middle colo- 
nies; but in this expectation, however, he was resisted and frustrated in the same manner 
as he was destined to be by the people of New England. There was a constant broil 



EPOCH OF DISCOVERY AND PLANTING 137 

between the governor and his council on the one side and the popular assembly and citizens 
on the other. This state of civil commotion extended to 1683, when Andres was superseded 
by Thomas Dongan, a Catholic. 

Under the administration of Dongan the form of the government was changed. The 
assembly of the people was recognized as a part of the colonial management. All freeholders 
were granted the right of suffrage ; trial by jur}' was established, and it was agreed that 
taxes should not henceforth be levied upon the people except by consent of the General 
Assembly. It was provided that soldiers should not be quartered on the people ; that marital 
law should not exist; that men should not be distressed or persecuted on account of their 
religious beliefs. All the rights and privileges which the people of Massachusetts and 
Virginia had gained under their charters and by the plan of self-government were carefully 
adopted by the law-makers of New York in their early constitution. 

TYRANNY OF JAMES II. 

In the year after the beginning of Dongan' s administration an important treaty was 
concluded at iVlbany. In July of that year the governors of New York and Virginia were 
met in convention by the sachems of the Iroquois, and the terms of a lasting peace were 
agreed upon. At this time the reign of Charles II., of bad fame, drew to a close. In 1685 
he died, and his brother, the Duke of York, was raised to the throne with the title of James 
II. For more than twenty years now past a reaction against popular liberty and against 
Protestantism had been going in England under the patronage and leadership of the crown. 
In his later years Charles II. had virtually gone back to the Mother Church. King James 
who succeeded him was in heart and fact a Catholic. The old principles of government 
which had been avowed and practised by the House of Tudor were again assumed as axioms 
of the administration and were acted upon as far as the temper of the English nation 
would permit. 

In this reactionary' policy James II. was bolder than his brother. He applied his theory 
not only to the home administration of England, but everywhere. As soon as he was seated 
on the throne he proceeded to violate the pledges which he had made to his American sub- 
jects. He became the open antagonist of the very- government which had been established 
under his own lieutenants in New York. He abrogated the popular legislature of that prov- 
ince. He imposed an odious tax by arbitrary decree on the people. He forbade printing 
presses, and restored all the old abuses under which the colony had labored and groaned in 
times past. 

Late in 1686 Sir Edmond Andros received his commission as governor of all New Eng- 
land. As his deputy he sent to New York and New Jersey Francis Nicholson to act in his 
name and by his authority. Governor Dongan was superseded, and New York was con- 
verted into a dependency of New England. Reference has already been made to the revo- 
lution of 1688 which expelled James II. from the kingdom and carried away with him all 
of his dependents and partisans. The government of Andros in New England and of his 
lieutenant, Nicholson, in New York was immediately overthrown. The governor and his 
adherents were glad to escape from the countn-, hearing behind them as they fled the huzzas 
with which the Americans hailed the accession of William of Orange to the throne of 
England. 

REBELLION AND PIRACY. 

In New York the expulsion of Nicholson from the government had been effected by an 
actual rebellion of the people. The leader of the insurrection was a certain Jacob Leisler 
and his son-in-law named Milbome. These led the revolt with a high hand and though 



1 



138 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



their action could hardly be condemned by the crown since it was a part of the revolution 
in England, yet the deputy-governor, Colonel Sloughter, who was sent out by William and 
Mar)-, was induced by the enemies of Leisler and Milborne to have them arrested, condemned 
and hanged. 

Sloughter's administration began in 1691; but he was soon superseded by Benjamin 
Fletcher, who held office until the invasion of New York by the French under Governor 
Frontenac, of Canada, in 1696. Two years afterwards came the Earl of Bellomont, an Irish 
nobleman of excellent character and popular sympathies. His administration, succeeding 
that of Fletcher, lasted for nearly four years and was the happiest period in the historj- of 
the colony. His authority was recognized as far as the river Housatonic. At one time 
Massachusetts and New Hampshire were under his jurisdiction. The colonies of Rhode 
Island and Connecticut, however, refused to acknowledge his nile. It was during his 
administration that the coasts and merchant vessels of the eastern and middle colonies 
were kept in alarm by the ravages of the famous sea-marauder. Captain William Kidd, the 
pirate. 

Bellomont' s administration ended in 1702. He was succeeded by Lord Cornbur)-, who 
arrived at New York in May of that year; but his character, manners and policy were wholly 
different from those of his predecessor. He soon broke with the popular assembly, and each 
succeeding legislature resisted his authority more and more. Petitions were circulated for 
his removal from office. The councillors chose their own treasurer, refused to make appro- 
priations, cut down the revenue and vexed the governor with opposition until after six years 
of turmoil and di.s.sension he was not only compelled to retire from office, but was impover- 
ished and ruined. He was succeeded by Lord Lovelace, who bore a commission from Queen 
Anne, the new sovereign of England. As for Cornbur)-, he was seized by the people and 
imprisoned for debt, until by his father's death he became a peer of England and could no 
longer be held in confinement. 

QUEEN ANNE'S WAR. 

New York participated with New England in the events of King William's and Queen 
Anne's war. The soldiers of the western province joined the army of New England to the 
uumber of eighteen hundred in the unsuccessful expedition against Montreal. The united 
forces of the colonies proceeded as far as South River, east of Lake George. Here the news 
came that the English fleet which had been expected to cooperate with the American pro- 
vincials in the reduction of Quebec had been sent to Portugal. The squadron of New Eng- 
land was not sufficiently strong to attempt the capture of the Canadian strongliold, and the 
troops of New York and New Jersey were obliged to retreat to their own countries. A sec- 
ond time, in 171 1, an expedition was sent forward to the borders of Canada. In this instance 
Sir Hovenden Walker conducted an English squadron up the St. Lawrence, but the sequel 
showed that he was incompetent for such an enterprise. The American forces meanwhile 
reached Lake George; but the news of the disaster to Walker's fleet removed all hope of 
success and the provincials once more returned to their homes. 

We have now, as in the case of Ma.s.sachusetts and Virginia, carried the narrative of 
events in New York well forward into the eighteenth centur)-. In 1732 Governor Cosby 
came into office and his administration was marked with a struggle of the people for the 
freedom of the press. The liberal newspapers of the province held that the acts of the 
government were subject to review end criticism in the public journals. The aristocratic 
party denounced such libertN- as mere license, dangerous to the established order and likely 
to sap the foundation of all authority. In one instance an editor named Zenger published 



EPOCH OF DISCOVERY AND PLANTING. 



139 



certain hostile criticisms on the policy of the governor and was arrested and imprisoned foi 
so doing. Great excitement ensued ; the people became clamorous for the liberation of 
their champion. Andrew Hamilton, a distinguished law_ver of Philadelphia, was sent foi 
to defend Zenger, who was brought to trial at New York in July of 1735. He was charo-ed 
with libel against the government; the cause was ably argued and the jury quickly brouo-ht 
in a verdict of acquittal. The aldermen of the city testified their appreciation of Hamil- 
ton's services in the cause of liberty by making him a present of an elegant gold box and 
the people kindled bonfires in their enthusiasm o\'er the victory which they had gained for 
a free press. 

THE NEGRO PLOT. 

The year 1741 was marked by the occurrence of what was called the Negro Plot. At 
this time negro slavery existed in New York and the slaves constituted a considerable frac- 
tion of the population. Several destruc- 
tive fires occurred, and the belief 
gained currency that these were the 
work of incendiaries. For some un- 
known reason the slaves were first 
distrusted and then suspected. They 
became objects of fear and hatred. 
In this condition of affairs some'j 
abandoned women came forward and 
informed the authorities that the 
negroes had conspired to bum the 
city, kill all who opposed them, and 
set up one of their own number as 
governor. 

Notwithstanding the absurdity of 
this rumor, the people in their terror 
were ready to believe it. The reward 
of freedom was offered to any slave 
who would reveal the plot. Many 
witnesses rushed forward, telling foolish 
and contradictory stories about the 
conspiracy, and the jails were soon 
filled with the accused. More than 
thirty of the miserable creatures, with" 
hardly a form of trial, were convicted 
and then hanged or burned to death. 




QUEEN ANNE. 

Others were transported and sold as slaves in 
foreign lands. No sooner, however, had the excitement passed and the people regained 
their senses than it came to be doubted whether the whole shocking affair had not been 
the result of terror and fanaticism. The verdict of aftertimes has been that there was 
no plot at all. 

In the time of King George's war New York was several times invaded by the French 
and Indians, but these incursions were easily repelled. In the northern part of the State a 
few villages were abandoned and considerable property in exposed localities destroyed. 



CHAPTER IX. 
MINOR COLONIES AND THE PEQUOD WAR. 




'E have already narrated the settlement of the first colonies 
in Connecticut. With the fonnding of Saybrook the 
valley of the most important river of New England was 
secured for English plantations. Settlers came and a few 
years sufficed to populate the valley with several enter- 
prising communities. Scarcely, however, had these 
established themselves in their future homes when the 
settlers became involved in a war with the Pequods. 
This broke out in the year 1633. The crew of a trading 
vessel was ambushed and murdered by the Indians. 
What provocation the whites had given is not known. 
An embassy of sachems went to Boston to apologize for 
the crime and a treaty was patched up, by the tenns 
of which the Pequods acknowledged the sovereignty of 
the English king and agreed to become civilized, what- 
ever that might mean. 
The Narragansetts 'in' alrea iy made a similar agreement with the English. It thus 
happened that the two principal aations of Indians were brought to peace with each other, 
and the hereditary fear which thi Pequods had entertained of the Narragansetts was removed. 
It appears that the Pequods soon took advantage of the imminiity thus gained to break 
their compact with the English and to begin on the frontier a series of hostilities. Old- 
ham, captain of a trading vessel, was killed by them, and 
they in turned wf re pursued and shot down by the Con- 
necticut militia. Hereupon the suppressed rage of the red 
men burst out in flames, and war began in earnest. 

As soon as fighting was the order of the day the 
Pequods sought to unite the Narragansetts with them for 
the extermination of the whites. In this serious mischief 
they were well nigh successful. The conspiracy, however, 
was defeated by the heroic generosity of Roger Williams, 
who used his influence with the sachems of the Narragan- 
setts to prevent them from making the alliance, as already and more fully described. The 
Mohegans were in like manner indticed to remain at peace with the whites. 

In the spring of 1637 an expedition was organized muler the command of Captain 
Mason, who advanced against the Pequods in their own country. He came upon the prin- 
cipal fort of the tribe, attacked it, set the wigwams on fire and made a holocaust of the 
village and its wretched inhabitants. Only seven of the warriors are said to have escaped. 
Six hundred men, women and children perished, nearly all of them being roasted to death 
in one hideous heap in the flames. The Pequod nation was destroyed. Not a wigwam was 
spared. The few who were taken prisoners were distributed as servants among the 

Mohegans and the Narragansetts. 

(140) 




SCENK OF THE I'KyUOI) WAR. 



EPOCH OF DISCOVERY AND PLANTING. 



141 




CAPT. MASON FIRING THE INDIAN VILLAGE. 



THE BIBLE AS THE CONSTITUTION OF THE STATE. 

Just after the close of the Pequod war New Haven was founded by a company of 

colonists from Boston. In 1639 the settlers held a convention in a barn^ and adopted the 

Bible as the constitution of the 

State ! The government was called 

the ' ' House of Wisdom, ' ' and seven 

of the leading men were called the 

Seven Pillars. Theophilus Eaton, 

first and greatest of the Pillars, was 

chosen governor for twenty years con- 
secutively. About this time the first 

settlements were planted on the 

opposite shores of Long Island Sound, 

where pleasant villages appeared before 

the middle of the century. 

The civil organization of Con- 
necticut may be dated from 1639. 

Delegates from the three principal 

towns came together at Hartford and au )|,ucu t 

simple constitution, in which the only qualification 

of citizenship was an oath of allegiance to the State. 

All religious opinions were alike tolerated and 

respected. 

In 1643 Connecticut became a member of the 

union of New England. New Haven, which 
had not adopted the Connecticut constitution, 
was also admitted. In the following yeat 
Saybrook was annexed to the parent colony. 
Up to the middle of the century fears were 
constantl)^ entertained of a conflict with the 
Dutch. In 1650, however, Governor Stuy- 
vesant and the commissioners of Connecticut 
met at Hartford and framed a treaty by 
v.'hich the boundary between his province 
and that of the English was established. In 
the brief space of a year war broke out 
between England and Holland, and the 
conflict was about to be renewed in America ; 
but before the colonists actually took up 
arms news of peace arrived, and the war was 
happily averted. 

When monarchy was restored in England, 
Connecticut at once recognized Charles IL 
as their rightful sovereign. In doing so, they 
were moved not so much by their political 
principles as by the hope of obtaining from 
for none such had as yet been secured. The 

younger Winthrop was sent in this interest to London with a constitution which the 




THE YOUNGER WINTHROP. 



that monarch a charter for their colony ; 



14? 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



Hartford patriots had drawn for themselves. This the King was induced to sign, and 
Winthrop came back in high spirits to the rejoicing people of Connecticut The 
charter was liberal to the last degree, conceding everj'thing but independence to the 
people. After this Wintlirop was chosen governor annually for fourteen consecutive 
years. Meanwhile tlie population greatly increased ; peace reigned ; the husbandman 
was undisturbed in the field and the workman in his shop. 

In 1675 — as already narrated — Sir Edmond Andros arrived as the governor of New 
York, and Captain Bull, who commanded the fort at Saybrook, was ordered to surrender 
the fort to the new official. The order was disregarded, and when Andros having come to 
land undertook to read his commission, he was resisted, and finally obliged to go back 
foaming with anger to his ship. Eleven years later, however, Andros became governor of 
all New England. He established his authority first in the three eastern colonies and then 
came to Hartford. He went into the provincial assembly 
and wrote Finis at the bottom of the secretarj's book 
of minutes! He demanded the surrender of the charter; 
but a debate ensued, and as the shades of evening fell 
Captain Joseph Wadsworth 
stole the coveted instrument 
and hid it in the famous 
Charter Oak — so called from 
this heroic and romantic 
incident. Andros succeeded 
for the time in establishing 
his authority; but two years 
afterwards was overthrown 
and expelled from the colo- 
nies, as alreadv narrated. 



THE DRUMS OF LIBERTY DROWN 
THE VOICE OF USURPATION 

In 1693, when Gover- 
nor Fletcher of New York 
was holding nile in that 
province he made an un- 
warranted attempt to ex- 
tend his authority over Con- 
necticut. His commission 




THE VOICB OF USURPATION DROWNED BY DRUM BEATS. 



from King William gave warrant for sucli a proceeding but 
the colonial charter forbade it. Wlieu he attempted, therefore, to assume command of 



the militia at Hartford Captain Wadsworth caused tlie drums to be beaten, 
silence!" exclaimed the enraged 
The controversy waxed hot, until 
vollev from the colonial muskets. 



"Silence, 

governor. ."Drum, drum!" shouted the captain. 

Wadsworth threatened the would-be governor wtli a 

Thereupon Fletcher retreated from the contest and 



Connecticut retained her liberties. 

"I give these books for the founding of a college in this colony." Such were th« 
words of ten ministers who, in the year 1700, met at the village of Branford, a few miles 
east of New Haven. Each of them as he uttered the words deposited a few volumes on the 
table around which they were sitting. Such was the founding of Yale College. Two years 



EPOCH OF DISCOVERY AND PLANTING. 143 

afterwards the school was fonnally opened at Saybrook, from which place it was removed to 
New Haven in 1717. One of the most liberal patrons of the college was Elihu Yale, from 
whom the famous institution of learning derived ite name. 

During the first half of the eighteenth century and up to the outbreak of the French and 
Indian War, all the western districts of New England enjoyed a period of prosperity. The 
blessings of free institutions and of unbroken peace were realized in full measure by the 
people of Connecticut. Want was unknown and pauperism unheard of in the colony. 
Wealth was little cared for and crime of rare occurrence among a people with whom intel- 
ligence and virtue were the only foundations of nobility. 

The stor>- of the exile of Roger Williams from Salem and Boston has already been told. 
West of the Narrangansett the wanderer, with a few companions who had joined him at 
Seekonk, laid out the settlement of Providence Plantation. This was in the summer of 
1636. Williams was a man of the largest abilities and great attainments in scholarship — 
according to the standard of the age. Religiously he was affiliated with that most radical 
body of dissenters called Anabaptists. He had himself received baptism in infancy ; but 
he came at length to doubt the validity of the ordinance so perfonned and determined to 
receive a second baptism. For this duty he selected a layman by whom he was baptized 
and whom he in turn baptized, with ten other exiles of the colony. Such was the organi- 
zation of the first Baptist Church in America.* 

Civil government followed in the simplest of simple fonns. The beginning of formal 

society in Rhode Island was democratic in the last degree. Williams reserved for himself 

HO rank or privilege. The lands which were purchased from the Indians were freely and 

equally distributed among the colonists. The governor toiled like the rest in the tilling of 

his two small fields. The constitution was at first a simple agreement signed by all the 

settlers that in all matters except those of conscience they would yield to the rule of tlic 

majority. 

AN EXPERIMENTAL THEOCRACY IN AMERICA. 

The "Government," moreover, bore the test of experience. Providence Plantation 
had peace and prosperity. At one time the magnanimity of Roger Williams led to a move- 
ment among his friends at Boston for his recall from banishment ; but the ministers of 
Boston hotly opposed the proposition, saying that his principles and teachings would subvert 
the commonwealth of Massachusetts ! So the proposal was rejected. 

In 1638 a new company of exiles from the parent colony arrived at Rhode Island. 
These were led by John Clarke, William Coddington and Mrs. Ann Hutchinson. Th« 
exiles left Massachusetts to found a new colony on the Delaware ; but Roger Williams badt 
them welcome, and Sir Henry Vane, at that time governor of Massachusetts, induced Mian- 
tonomoh, sachem of the Narragansetts, to make to the exiles a gift of the island of Rhod< 
Island. Here the colony was planted. Portsmouth was founded first. As to a frame of 
government, the little band concluded that they would take ancient Israel as a model. They 
accordingly established a little theocracy and William Coddington was elected judge. 
Stiange spectacle to behold on an island in Narragansett Bay the restoration or attempted 
revival of a form of society which had perished three thousand years before ! 

It was not long till the Israel of Narragansett Bay proved a failure ; but the colony 

* The regular Baptists do not concede the organization of their Church to Roger Williams, but regard Dr. 
John Clarke, of Rhode Island, us the true father of the Baptist denomination in America. Much controversy has 
grown out of the dispute between the two parties. Volumes have been written in behalf of each. The congre- 
gation organized-by Williams was first in time ; that organized by Dr. Clarke had the sanction of regularity and 
is accepted by regular Baptists as their originaL 



144 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

did not fail or wane. Ou the coutrary, it waxed and multiplied. The establishment of a 
civil government succeeded the theocracy in 164 1. The new style of civil affairs was 
entitled a " Democracie," or government by the people. The supreme authority was 
lodged with the whole body of freemen ; and freemen in this instance meant everybody. 
On the seal of the State was written Amor Vincet Omnia — Love will conquer all things. 

Rhode Island was not permitted tc enter the union of New England. The refusal 
of the parent colony to accept those of Narragansett Bay on terms of equality and the 
claim now advanced by Plymouth to jurisdiction over the prosperous settlements in thai 
region alarmed the people of Rhode Island, and they determined to make secure theii 
political existence by obtaining a royal charter. For this purpose Roger Williams was 
appointed plenipotentiar>' of the two plantations and sent to London. There he wa.'- 
received by bis old friend, Sir Henrj' Vane, who aided him in obtaining from Parliameni 
the grant cf a charter. Great was the rejoicing when the ambassador came back to hi.' 
people bearing the Parliamentary' patent. He was received with shouts by the people of 
Seekonk, who conducted him in triumph to his home at Providence. 

The future history of Rhode Island was prosperous and full of promise. After the resto 
ration of the colony through the agency of George Baxter, the people sectired from Kins 
Charles II. the confirmation and reissuance of their charter and were thus firmly establisheo 
as an independent democratic State. Such was the condition of affairs when near the close of 
the century Sir Edmond Andros aixived, broke the seal of the colony, subverted the gov- 
ernuient, appointed an irresponsible council and left the little "Democracie" in ruins. 

The usurpation, however, was brief In 16S9 James II. and his royal governors and 
eatellites passed away together. On Alayday of the following year the people of Rhode 
Island restored their liberties. The old democratic institutions were revived and Waltei 
Clarke was reelected governor. He was, however, fearful of accepting, as was also Gov- 
ernor Almy who was chosen in his stead. It remained for an octogenarian Quaker named 
Henry Bull to accept the trust and restore the old fonn of government. Again the little. 
State around the Bay of the Xarragansetts began to prosper. For a period of fift\' years the 
peace of the colony was unbroken. The principles of the great founder became in large 
•measure the principles of the commonweal tli — and have remained such to the present day. 

PROSPERITY ATTENDS THE COLONY IN MARYLAND. 

Before closing the present chapter, we may glance at the development of I\Ian-land, the 
principal southern colony after Virginia. Leonard Calvert treated the nati\-es in the 
neighborhood of his settlement of St. I\Iar>''s with great liberality. The consequence was 
that the settlers had peace and plenty. The Indians and the colonists interchanged com- 
modities and both were profited. Within six months the colony at St. Mar}-'s grew into 
:greater prosperity than that at Jamestown had reached in as many years. The pledge of 
civil and religions liberty made by the founder was fully redeemed; nor should the readei 
fail to remember that this example of almost perfect toleration on the part of the Catholic? 
preceded by fully two years the first settlement of Rhode Island. 

In 1633 the first assembl\' of the freemen of Maryland was convened at St. Mary's. 
Colonial legislation proper began two years afterwards; but owing to the destruction of the 
records for the first ten years not much is known of the spirit and tendency of the primitive 
legislation of the colony. It is certain, however, that there were serious dif^culties tc 
contend with. Claybome, who had planted a settlement on Kent Island resisted Lord Bal- 
timore's authority. A petty war broke out. A few were killed and one or two person* 
executed before the Clayborne settlement was subdued. 



EPOCH OF DISCOVERY AND PLANTING. 



145 



In 1639, representative government was established in Maryland. Soon afterwards 
when the news came of the English Revolution the Indians began to show signs of hos- 
tility, and in 1642 war broke out between the colonists and the natives. The conflict was 
less destructive and barbarous than usually happened in the case of Indian wars, and after 
two years of hostility a treaty was made with the savages. 

The religious statutes of the colon}' favoring toleration date from 1649. ^^ these free- 
dom of conscience was guaranteed to all. Oue of the remarkable spectacles of the time 
i?as witnessed in the refuge which was furnished by the Catholic colonists of the Chesa- 
peake for certain persecuted Protestants who had been proscribed and banished by other 
Protestants of the neighboring colonies. The bigotr}' of the age was further illustrated 
in the conduct of the Puritan and Republican party when that party gained the ascendant 
during the time of the commonwealth in England. The first act of the body was to 
acknowledge the supremacy of Cromwell, and the next was to disfranchise and outlaw the 
Catholics! The result was necessaril}' a civil war. 

For several years the conflict continued until, in 1658, a compromise was aflfected by 

which Josias Fendall, 
deputy of Lord Balti- 
more, was acknow- 
ledged as governor. 
The acts of the Protes- 
tant assemblies, on the 
other hand, were re- 
cognized as valid and 
a general amnesty was 
declared for all offences. 
After the death of 
Oliver Cromwell the 
people of Maryland 
were perplexed t« 
choose a policy. At 
length, however, they 
declared their inde- 
pendence. This led to a setting aside of the rights of Lord Baltimore and the abrogation 
of his council. The same course was taken by the people of Virginia. As soon as it was 
known, however, that Charles II. had been restored to the throne the rights of the 
Baltimores were revived and recognized. Governor Fendall, who had in the meantime 
espoused the cause of independence, was now seized and tried for treason, but his life was 
saved by the clemency of Lord Baltimore. 

WARS BETWEEN CATHOLICS AND PROTESTANTS. 
In 1675 Sir Charles Calvert succeeded to the estates and titles of the Baltimores. and 
for sixteen years exercised proprietary rights as governor of Maryland. The population of 
the colony had now increased to more than ten thousand. The laws of the province were 
carefully revised on the same liberal principles which had been adopted by the first Lord 
Baltimore, The English Revolution of 168S brought gre^.t confusion to the colonists of the 
Chesapeake. The deputy of Lord Baltimore hesitated to acknowledge William and Mary 
as the rightful sovereigns. A rumor was spread abroad by the Protestant party that the 
Catholics had leagued with the Indians for the destruction of all who opposed them. Thii 
led again to war, and the Catholic partv was compelled to surrender the government 




'J^^^r^^r^^ 



TRAINING-DAY IN THE OLDEN TIME. 



146 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

These circumstances gave opportunity and excuse to King William to interfere 
decisively in the affairs of the colony. On the ist of June, 1691, the charter of Lord Balti- 
more was arbitrarily taken away and a royal governor appointed over the province. Sii 
Lionel Copley was commissioned and came out to Maryland in 1692. Not only the old 
patent, but the principles on which that patent was founded, were swept away. The 
Episcopal Church was established by law and a system of taxation was invented for its 
support. Religious toleration was abolished on the very- scene of its greatest triumphs! 
For twenty-fou'r years this condition of affairs continued until, in 1715, Queen Anne waa 
induced to restore the heir of Lord Baltimore to the rights of his ancestors. Maryland 
again became a proprietary government, under the authority of the Calverts, and so con- 
tinued until the Revolutionary- War. 

It remains to notice briefly the progress of the two Carolinas. The Albemarle county 
colony had for its first governor William Drammond. Shortly afterwards the Clarendon 
county colony was planted under the governorship of Sir John Yeamans. Both settlements 
flourished. Immigration was rapid, and within a single year eight hundred people settled 
along the River Chowan. 

As for government, the task was assigned to Sir Ashley Cooper, who appointed the 
philosopher J^ohn Locke to prepare a constitution. In 1669 that learned man produced his 
frame of government called the Grand Model. The sequel showed that it had been better 
named the Grand Absurdity. Locke had provided in the pompous instmment for the 
organization of an empire in which there were to be many orders of nobility— dukes, earls 
and marquises, knights, lords and esquires, baronial courts, heraldic ceremony and every 
sort of feudal nonsense that the human imagination could conceive. Such was the mag- 
nificent constitution which wisdom had planned for the government of a few colonists who 
lived on venison and potatoes and paid their debts with tobacco. 

The people of Carolina, however, proceeded to organize for self-government after the 
simple manner of pioneers. The Grand Model was found impossible of application and after 
twenty years was cast aside. The soil of Clarendon county was poor, and in 1671 the 
greater number of colonists were removed to the mouth of the Ashley River. By the close 
of the century the primitive settlement was abandoned, but Albemarle county was more 

prosperous. 

DISTRACTIONS AND OPPRESSIONS. 

In 1680 the notorious Seth Sothcl became deputy governor of Carolina ; but he waj 
fortunately captured by pirates, and did not arrive until 16S3. For five years he defrauded 
and oppressed the people, until he was finally overthrown and sentenced by the General 
Assembly to disfranchisement and twelve mouths' banishment from North Carolina. Other 
governors followed of greater pnidence and probity. Immigration continued, principally 
from Virginia and Maryland. Quakers came from New England and the Delaware. 

In 1707 a baud of French Huguenots arrived from France. A hundred families of 
German refugees escaped from their distant homes beyond the Rhine to find asylum on the 
banks of the Neuse. Peasants from Switzerland came, and founded New Berne at the 
mouth of Trent River. Meanwhile the Indian nations receded and wasted away. Peace 
was maintained with the natives until 171 1, when a brief war_ completed the ruin of the 
natives and expelled them from the better parts of North Carolina. 

Such in general was the course of events in the northern colony until its separation 
from the southern. This was effected in 1729. The Cape Fear River was made the divid- 
ing line, and a royal governor was appointed for each of the two colonies. In South 



1 



EPOCH OF DISCOVERY AND PLANTING. 147 

Carolina immigration had not lagged. Many circumstances favored the settlement of this 
province and few disasters retarded it. Old Charleston remained the capital until the year 
1680, when the present metropolis was founded on the peninsula called Oyster Point, 
between the Ashley and Cooper Rivers. 

The best nations of Europe contributed to the population of New Charleston and of 
the whole country between the Cape Fear and the Savannah. Hither came in gresH. 
numbers the French Huguenots. They were met by the proprietaries with pledges of pro- 
tection and promise of citizenship ; but for a season they were treated with distrust by the 
English colonists. Not until 1697 were all discriminations against the French immigrant* 
removed. A just civil administration of the colony was not obtained until 1695, when 
John Archdale, a distinguished and talented Quaker, was appointed governor. Under his 
influence a law was enacted by which the Huguenots were admitted to full citizenship, and 
all Christians except the Catholics were enfranchised. The ungenerous exception was made 
by the assembly against the governor's will. 

Early in the eighteenth century the Church of England was established by law iu 
South Carolina. All the dissenters were disfranchised. An appeal was made by the 
minority to the proprietaries of the province, but they refused to listen. The appeal was 
then carried to Parliament, and by that body it was decided that the proprietaries had for- 
feited their charter. The legislature thereupon revoked its own act ; but the Episcopal 
Church remained as the religious establishment of South Carolina. 

In 1729 seven of the eight proprietaries of the Carolinas sold their entire claims in 
the provinces to the King. Lord Carteret, the eighth, would surrender nothing but his 
right of jurisdiction, reserving his share in the soil. Royal governors were hereupon 
appointed, and the affairs of South Carolina were settled on a permanent basis not to be 
disturbed for more than forty years. 

The people who colonized the Carolinas were brave and chivalrous. On the banks of 
the Santee, the Edisto and the Combahee were gathered some of the best elements of the 
European nations. Equally with the rugged Puritans of the north the Carolinians were 
'overs of liberty. Without the severe morality and formal manners of the Pilgrims, the 
people became the leaders in courtly politeness and high-toned honor between man and 
man. In the coming struggle for freedom and independence the colonists of the South, 
now risen to the stature of American citizens, showed themselves to be worthy descendants 
of their ancestors. They joined hands with their fellows of the North in the Declaration 
of Independence, suffered in that great cause, and helped as much as any to vindicate it witb 
their swords. 




BOOK SECOND. 



Epoch of Independence. 



CHAPTER X. 

THE OLD THIRTEEN. 

E are here to enter upon an account of the first movemente 
made in common by the American colonies — the first hall- 
conscious attempts of our thirteen primitive republics to 
enter into union. Such had been the nature of the varioua 
colonial establishments — such the diverse nationalities and 
antagonistic principles which had contributed to fonn the 
early plantations — that few or none of our citizens 
of the first half of the eighteenth century accepted a« 
true the aphorism, " In union there is strength." 

On the contrar}' the fathers held practically the notion 
that strength lay in diversity and independence. The 
founders of the American colonies came to America to find 
individuality, freedom, the liberty of localism, exemption 
from the exactions of authority and the hardships of power. 
The isolation of the early American settlements may well 
remind the reader of the bristling individualism of the 
ancient Greek democracies. If there ever is to be an American Union, therefore, the old- 
time spirit and purpose of the colonists must be changed, transfonned into a new mood and 
tense, turned into a different channel of will and action. 

It is needless to point out the manner in which such changes are historically effected. 
War is the usual agent which histoiy adopts in the destruction of social and race prejudices. 
Although new prejudices are produced thereby, the old are extinguished. It was destined 
to be so in the case of our American colonies. Their segregation was to be overcome and 
their prejudices finally abated, not indeed by one war, but by many. We have now arrived 
at the time wlieu an inter-colonial conflict was imminent and when the English colonists in 
America must out of the sentiment of safety join their issues in a common cause against a 
common foe. This movement was the beginning of American independence. We should 
not wait for the passage of the Stamp Act, for the Boston Tea-party, the Port Bill, the com- 
ing of a British anny from Halifax to the metropolis of New England, the meeting of a 
Colonial Congress, the flash of nuiskctr>- at Lexington or on the slopes of Breed's pasture — 
to note the beginning of our War for Independence. That decisive and world-changing 




EPOCH OF INEEPENDENCE. 149 

event began with the first tentative efforts of the American colonies to act as one. The 
sentiment of unity was the germ of nationality and whenever the first appeared the second 
began to be. 

Before entering upon an account of the French and Indian war (for that is the conflict 
to which reference is made in the preceding paragraphs) it is appropriate to sketch briefly 
the general condition of our colonial republics at the middle of the eighteenth century — to 
give some account of their attainments, dispositions, tendencies and purposes while they 
still stood asunder under the influence of the forces which had created them as distinct 
entities on our coasts. 

The colonies were thirteen in number. Four of them constituted New England, namely, 
Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut and New Hampshire. Four were Middle Colo- 
nies — New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware. Five were Southern Colonies — 
Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. All had grown and 
prospered. True, the rate of progress — ^as progress is estimated at the close of the nineteenth 
centur}' — was exceedingly slow, but it was nevertheless progress. The elements of power, 
rather than the exhibition of power, v/ere present in all the colonies. A wilful, patriotic 
and vigorous race of democrats had taken possession of the Atlantic seaboard and had fitted 
themselves with skill and courage to their new environment. Institutions unknown in 
Europe, peculiar to the situations of these peoples in the New World, made necessary by the 
conditions and surroundings of the colonies, had sprung up and taken deep root in American 

soil. 

POPULATION OF THE COLONIAL STATES. 

At the middle of the eighteenth century the entire population of the old thirteen 
colonies was about a million and a half. Ten years later the estimates recorded a million 
six hiindred and ninety-five thousand souls. Of these about three hundred and ten thousand 
were blacks. Massachusetts was at this period the strongest colony, having more than two 
hundred thousand people of European ancestry within her borders. True, Virginia had a 
greater aggregate population, numbering altogether two hundred and eighty-four thousand 
inhabitants; but of these a hundred and sixteen thousand were Africans — slaves. Next in 
order stood Pennsylvania with her population of nearly two hundred thousand; next Con- 
necticut with her hundred and thirty thousand people; next Maryland with a hundred and 
four thousand; then New York with eighty-five thousand; New Jersey not quite as many; 
then South Carolina, and so through the feebler colonies to Georgia, in whose borders were 
fewer than five thousand inhabitants, including the negroes. 

By the middle of the century the people of the American colonies had, to a certain ex- 
tent, approximated a common character. The old-time differences, however, still existed 
to a marked degree. The peculiarities which the ancestors of the colonists had brought 
mth them from Europe were retained by their descendants, though with a measure of modi- 
fication. In New England, particularly in Massachusetts and Connecticut, the principles 
and practices of Puritanism still prevailed, and were universally recognized as the founda- 
tions of good society. To a certain extent, however, the lineaments of the system as it had 
existed at the middle of the seventeenth century were softened and relaxed. Though the 
Church was still dominar. t over secular society, its tjaanny was not so absolute and galling 
as it had been aforetime. 

On the banks of the Hudson the manners and customs of Holland were still prevalent, 
in some districts almost as prevalent as they had been a hundred years before. In other 
parts of New York, the English language and people had predominated. This was particu- 



15° 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



larly true at New York city, which b\- this time had become thoroughly Anglicized. Be- 
yond the Delaware the Quakers had gathered in great numbers. They controlled the Legis- 
lature of Pennsylvania, and gave form to society. Other elements had been freely admit- 




PERSECUTION OF THE MORAVIANS. 

ted into the colony, but were not thus f;ir sufficicntl)^ strong to bring serious innovations 
upon the simple methods of civil and social life introduced by Penn and his companions. 



EPOCH OF INDEPENDENCE. 151 

An exception to this peaceful condition and freedom of opinion was found, however, in 
the general bearing of society against the Moravians, who, though somewhat like the Qua- 
kers, were yet madeobjects of the bitterest persecutions, particularly in New York and Connect- 
icut, where the Catholics held them in extreme aversion. They were charged with inciting 
the Iroquois Indians to hostility in the interest of France, and other specific allegations of 
perfidy were made to incite popular hatred and thus to justify the abuses to which they were 
subjected. Refusing to subscribe to an oath on religious scruples, this refusal was made 
the excuse for the passage of a law prohibiting any person living in the province who ob- 
jected to being bound by such obligation. In order to carr>' this iniquitous law into effect, 
the Moravians were attacked in the most inhuman manner and driven with blows from their 
fields, homes and workshops, by which persecutions the Moravian missions had to be aban- 
doned. Intolerance did its work, and bigotry was accordingly increased, to the insecurity 

of society. 

SOCIETY IN THE STATES. 

On the northern bank of the Potomac, the youthful Frederick, the sixth Lord Balti- 
more, a frivolous and dissolute personage, ruled the people who still conformed to the order 
of things established a century and a quarter previously by Sirs George, Cecil and Leonard 
Calvert. The revolutions to which the province had been subjected had abated somewhat 
its distinctly Catholic character; but the Mother Church was still in great reputation and 
power. Baltimore had grown to be an important city, though the province as a whole had 
been pressed between the two powerful colonies of Pennsylvania and Virginia, until the ter- 
ritory had been narrowed in some parts almost to a thread. 

In Virginia, the mother of States and statesmen, the people had retained their old 
peculiarities. Here pride of ancestry more than elsewhere had prevailed to give an aristo- 
cratic cast to society. The Virginians had cultivated a somewhat haughty demeanor. 
They had taken their models from the English nobility. Broad estates gave honor to those 
who possessed them. Fondness for the aristocratic life, and in particular for the sports of 
the aristocracy had become a passion. There was much seclusiveness, but it was accompa- 
nied with hospitality; great dignity, hauteur, artificialities of honor; but these were 
blended with a sincere love of freedom. 

The North Carolinians were at this epoch the same rugged and insubordinate race of 
hunters that they had always been. They were pioneers by preference. To them com- 
merce and the city life had few attractions. They carried their personal peculiarities into 
the civil affairs of the colony. The legislative assembly in its controversies with Govemc« 
Dobbs manifested all the intractable stubbornness which characterized that body in the days 
of Seth Sothel. 

In South Carolina there was much prosperity and happiness; but there, too, popular 
liberty had been enlarged by the constant encroachment of the Legislature upon the royal 
prerogative. The people were mostly of French descent, and were as hot-blooded and jeal- 
ous of their rights as their Huguenot ancestors had been in the time of their exile and ban- 
ishment. Very elegant and proud and high-mannered was the little society of the upper 
blood, which might be seen in the homes and evening parties of Charleston at the middle 
of the eighteenth century. Not a little fine dress was there — much chivalry among the 
young men of the day — much beauty and fine bearing among the ladies of the little 
seaport city. 

Of all the colonies Georgia had at this time the least strength and spirit. Under the sys- 
tem of government established at the first the commonwealth had languished. Perhaps the 
Hberated debtors from the English iails and their first descendants were not able to rise at 



1 



152 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



•nee into a large prosperity. It was uoi until 1754, when Governor Reynolds assumed con- 
trol of the colony, that the affairs of the people on the Savannah began to flourish. Even 
afterwards something of the indigence and want of thrift and spirit which had marked the 
followers of Oglethorpe still prevailed in Georgia. Nevertheless, after making allowance 
for all these differences of colonial character as they might be noted in the sixth decade of 
the century, a considerable degree of American unity had been attained. Inter-colonial 
relations had been established by which even the remotest colonies were in some slight 
degree bound the one to the other. The old religious prejudices had softened under the 
influence of time and intelligence, and the people as a whole were far less antagonistic, 
uidividual and sectional than they had been in the seventeenth century. 

EDUCATIONAL ADVANTAGES. 
In the matter of education New England had from the first taken the lead. She haQ 
at an early date established the system of free schools and these were now extended to ever>' 

village and hamlet from the 
Penobscot to the Hudson. Each 
town or district furnished its 
ovm local facilities for the ac- 
quirement of knowledge. So 
complete and universal were the 
means of instniction that in the 
epoch immediately preceding 
the Revolution there was said 
not to be found in all New Eng- 
;j land an adult born in the 
countr)' who could not read 
and write ! Whatever, there- 
fore, ma)' have been the narrow- 
ness and bigotr}- of Puritanism 
as a system of religion, its 
record on the question of educa- 
tion is worthy to be written in 
gold, 
universal education of a people 
first half the eighteenth century 
of such a people as now 
inhabit the same States of the Union. In the present age the volume of population is 
vastly expanded. The difficulty of a general super\-ision over society is infinitely greater 
than when a few towns and villages with salubrious country districts stretching between 
furnished the whole body of the people. Now the waters of population are disturbed 
with cross currents and made muddy with tiie discharge therein of a hundred foreign 
streams. A vast municipal life of depravity, ignorance, vice, ambition, luxury on the one 
hand and squalor on the other, has succeeded to the simple and wholesome life which still 
prevailed in the New England of a hundred and fifty years ago. Still, after allowance for 
all this shall have been fully made, we must be convinced, as before, that the success 
of the Puritan colonies in promoting the institution of free schools and in making 
universal education not only a possibility but a fact stands unparalleled in the history 
of the western nations. 




A PRIMITIVK NEW ENGLAND 
SCHOOL. 

True it is that the 
situated as the New England colonists were during the 
is an easy task as compared with the universal instruction 



EPOCH OF INDEPENDENCE. 



153 



In the Middle Colonies education was not so general. In Pennsylvania, howeverj 
there was a wholesome system of public schools and much intelligent activity among the 
people. In this colony the greatest distinction was achieved by individuals. Here it was 
that the illustrious Franklin scattered the light of learning, not only in Philadelphia and 
the Quaker commonwealth, not only throughout the American colonies, but even to foreign 
shores. 

South of the Potomac educational facilities were insuflScient and irregular. The 
schools in these parts were generally designed for the benefit of the wealthier classes. In 
some localities, however, the means of enlightenment were well provided. Institutions of 
learning sprang up scarcely inferior to those of the eastern provinces or of Europe. Edu- 
cation in the South, however, was rather a matter of personal than of social enterprise. 
Men established schools, while villages and hamlets and towns neglected to do so. It 
could hardly be said, therefore, that in the South — taking Virginia as the standard — the 
people were educated. Certainly they were not universally instnicted even in the nidi- 
ments of learning. The private schools generally owed their origin to those who taught 
therein. Many men — Scottish reformers, Irish liberals and French patriots — despising the 
bigotry and intolerance of their countrymen, fled for refuge to the New World and there by 
the banks of the Housatonic, the Hudson, the Delaware, the Potomac, the Ashley and 
the Savannah, taught the lore of books and the lesson of civil liberty to the rugged boys of 
the American wilderness. 

LOG SCHOOL-HOUSE AND THE SCREW PRINTING PRESS. 
Among the Southern Colonies Virginia led the van in educational enterprises. The 
Virginian youth bom in the middle decades of the eighteenth centur}' were among the largest 

brained of the sons of men. Such must needs be 
educated. They themselves would find a way 01 
make it. Some found it in private academies; some 
with individual teachers who had been well educated 
in the universities of Europe; others in the colleges 
of the commonwealth; while only a few were sent 
abroad for instruction. The planters of this 
period were fully able to give their sons liberal 
educations in the universities of the mother country, 
but there was clearly a growing dislike of foreign 
instruction and an increasing preference for the home 
institution of learning such as it was. 

In IMarj-land, the Carolinas and Georgia the 
cause of education lagged behind. Previous to the 
Revolution nine colleges worthy of the name had 
been established in the American colonies These 
were Harvard, William and Mary, Yale, Princeton, King's, (now Columbia), Blown, 
Queen's (afterwards called Rutger's), Dartmouth, and Hampden and Sydney. In 1764 the 
first medical college in America was founded at Philadelphia. 

We have already spoken of the early institution of the printing press. This great 
agent and forerunner of civilization abounded — not in the sense that it abounds at the 
present day, but relatively to the condition and activities of society. Before the Revolu- 
tion the press was already effective as an organ of opinion and promoter of public rights. 
As early as 1774 the Boston News Letter^ first of periodicals in the New World, was pub. 




PRINTING THE BOSTON NEWS LETTER. 



154 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

lished in the city of the Puritans. Fifteen years elapsed, however, before another experi- 
ment of the same sort was made. In 1721 the New England Couranl, a little sheet 
devoted to free thougfht and the extinction of rascalitv was established at Boston bv the 
two Franklins — James and Benjamin. As late as 1740 New York had bnt one periodical; 
Virginia one, and South Carolina one; and at the close of the French and Indian War 
there were no more than ten newspapers published in the American colonies. 

Perhaps the chief obstacles to such publications were the absence of great cities and 
the difficulty of communication between distant sections of the country. Boston and 
' Philadelphia had each at this period no more than eighteen thousand inhabitants ; New 
York had but twelve thousand. In all Virginia there was not one important town ; while 
from her southern limit as far south as the borders of Florida there was scarcely a consider- 
able village. To reach this widely scattered population with periodical publications was 
quite impossible. As for popular literature, there was little or none. Bookr. were few, and 
many of those which the colonial libraries afforded were as husks and straw to the huugr) 
mind of man. Some dry volumes of annals (dignified by the name of historj-), theolog)' 
and politics were the ouly stock and store. On the latter subject the publications were 
sometimes full of pith and spirit. 

It was in the political treatise, great or small, that the pre-Revolutionary author found 
vent for what wit and wisdom soever nature had given him withal. In this there wa» 
freedom. As for religious books the old theolog)' was in full force and sat like a nightmare 
00 every page. Historical literature had not yet appeared in the earth, at least not since 
the death of the classical ages, and the novel was generally niled out by the dogmatic spirit 
of the age. But notwithstanding this barrenness of books and general poverty of the 
resources of knowledge, it was no unusual thing to find at the foot of the Virginia moun- 
tains, in the quiet precincts of Philadelphia, by the banks of the Hudson, or in the valleys 
and towns of New England, a man of great and solid learning. Such a man was Thomas 
Jeflferson ; such were Franklin and Livingston, and the Adamses, and of a later date Hamil- 
ton — ^men of profound scholarship, bold in thought, ready with the pen, skilful in argument, 
studious, witty and eloquent. 

MEANS OF TRAVEL AND COMMUNICATION. 

Nothing proved to be a greater impediment to the progress of the colonies than the 
want of roads and thoroughfares. Easy and rapid communication between the different 
sections was unknown. No general system of post-offices or post-roads had as yet been 
established ; and the people were thus left in comparative or total ignorance of events in 
neighborhoods and settlements not verj' remote from their own. As a rule, the people of 
one colony heard only at a late day, and then by imperfect tradition and flying nnnor, of the 
events of another colony — even events of the greatest importance. No common sentimentJ 
could be expressed — no common enthusiasm be kindled in the country by the slow-going 
mails and packets. The sea-coast towns and cities found a readier intercourse by means 
of small sloops plying the Atlantic ; but the inland districts were almost wholly cut off 
from tlais advantage. Roads were slowly built from point to point and lines of travel by 
coach and wagon were gradually established. 

It thus happened that to the very beginning of the Revolution the American colonists 
lived apart. They were isolated and dependent upon their own resources for life and enjoy- 
ment Doubtless there was in the condition quite a tinge of solitude ; but it should be 
rem.embercd that solitude is one of the greatest and most efficient schools of instruction. 
In it the faculties acquire a peculiar robustness, a strength and vigor which may well 



EPOCH OF INDEPENDENCE. 155 

betoken heroic action, patriotism and longevity. It was at this epoch that the means of 
inter-commiinication began to be enlarged and improved. In 1766 an express wagon made 
the trip from New York to Philadelphia in two days. Such rate of speed was considered a 
marvel of rapidity ! Six years later the first stage coach began to run regularly between 
Boston and Providence. * 

If we glance at the industrial life we shall find that before the Revolution the Ameri- 
cans were for the most part an agricultural people. Within the tidewater line of Virginia 
the lands were divided into estates, and the planters devoted themselves almost exclusively 
to the cultivation of tobacco. Further inland the products were more various. Above the 
line of tidewater wheat, corn, potatoes, upland cotton, hemp and flax were easily and 
abundantly produced. In the Carolinas and Georgia the rice crop was most important ; 
after that, indigo, cotton and some silk; tar, turpentine, and what the hunter and fisherman 
gathered from the woods and streams. New York, Philadelphia and Boston were then as 
now the great centres of trade ; but commerce was carried on in a slow and awkward 
manner wholly unlike the rushing activity of more recent times. 

One of the most important industrial interests of the colonies was shipbuilding. In 
New England the people of the coasts were generally experts in the building and manage- 
ment of ships, such as ships were at the middle of the eighteenth century. In the year 
1738 no fewer than forty-one sailing vessels, with an average burden of a hundred and fifty 
tons, were built and launched at the shipyards of Boston. This was done, as all the world 
' knows, in the face of the restrictions laid by the mother country' on every marine enter- 
prise promoted among the Americans. 

New England was the seat of the principal manufacturing interests of the country. 
Everything in this direction, however, was checked and impeded by the British Board of 
Trade, whose arbitrary restrictions acted as a damper on all manner of colonial thrift and 
enterprise. No sooner would some young and prosperous company of New England men 
begin the building of a factory than this officious Board would interfere in such a way as to 
make success impossible. So jealous was the English Ministr}^ of American progress ! If 
previous to the Revolution any colonial manufactures were successfully established, it was 
done against the will of Great Britain and in spite of her mean and churlish opposition. 

Such were the American colonies at the time when they first began to act as one in a 
common cause. New generations had now arisen with kindlier feelings and more charitable 
sentiments than had been entertained by the austere fathers of the seventeenth century. 
New conditions had appeared, new relations of a complex and international character, 
which were well calculated to bring the people of the American communities into concord 
and final union of action. The event which history had reserved as the immediate cause 
of such approximation and union of effort was the event of war. 

* The reader may naturally conclude that the American colonies were greatly behindhand in developing the 
means of inter-coinmumcatiou ; but not so. The classical nations oi antiquity built great thoroughfares from 
State to State ; but in the Middle Ages great roads were almost unknown in Europe. Even in England such 
works lagged to a late period. In so old a country as Scotland there were no great thoroughfares constructed 
until after the Scotch rebellion of 1745. 



CHAPTER XL 
FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR. 




colonies. 



T was the sense of a common danger that led our colonial 
fatliers of 1754 to unite their energies in repelling a foe 
equally inimical to all. The time was now at hand 
when the final stniggle should occur between France 
and England for colonial supremacy in America. It 
^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ was necessity that compelled the English colonies to 

if ^ ^^■ra^^^HH^^^^B I e combine their energies against the French. We may 

here note briefly the causes of the war which ensued, 
first in America and afterwards between the parent 
nations in Europe. 

The first and most eflicient of these causes was the con- 
flicting territorial claims of France and England. The 
latter had colonized the American seaboard; the fonnei 
had colonized the interior of the continent. Great Britain 
occupied the coast, but her claims reached far bejond hei 
The English kings had always proceeded upon the theory- that the prior dis- 
coveries of the Cabots had established a just claim, not only to the countries along the 
coast, but also to the great inland region stretching westward to the Pacific. 

The claims of France were of a diSerent kind. She had colonized first of all the 
valley of the St. Lawrence. Montreal, one of her earliest settlements, was planted five 
hundred miles from the sea. In the latter half of the seventeenth centur)' the French 
pushed their way westward and southward, first along the shores of the Great Lakes, tlien 
to the headwaters of the Wabash, the Illinois, the Wisconsin and the St. Croi.x, then down 
these streams to the Mississippi, and then to the Gulf of Mexico. 

The historical effect and perhaps the conscious purpose of these movements were easily 
discoverable. The result was to divide North America by circumscribing the English 
cclonies with a broad band of French territory' which would enable Fraiice to possess first 
-he great river valleys of the interior, and afterwards the better half of the continent. It 
night indeed have been apprehended a priori that France and England, occupying the 
tither verge of Europe, would be the leading nations to colonize the central parts of North 
America, and also that these two States would ultimately contend for the master)' in tlie 
New World. The events corresponded to expectation. 

The work of French colonization in America had been chiefly effected by the Jesuit 
missionaries. In 1641 Charles Raymbault, first of the great explorers, passed through the 
northern straits of Lake Huron and entered Lake Superior. In the thirty years that 
followed the Jesuit missionaries continued their explorations with prodigious activity-. 
Missions were established at various points north of the lakes and in the countries afterward? 
called Michigan, Wisconsin and Illinois. In 1673 Fathers Joliet and Marquette passed 
from the headwaters of Fox River over the watershed to the upper tributaries of the Wis- 

(■56) 



EPOCH OF INDEPENDENCE. 



157 



consiu, and thence down that river in a seven day's voyage to the Mississippi. It was now 

a hundred and thirty-three 5'ears since the discovery- of the Father of Waters by De Soto. 

For a full month the canoe of Joliet and Marquette bore them downward toward the sea. 

They passed the mouth of the Arkansas River and reached the limit of their voyage at the 

thirty-third parallel of latitude. Turning their boat up stream they entered the mouth 

of the Illinois, and returned by the site of Chicago into Lake Michigan and thence to 

, Detroit. 

EXPLORATIONS OF LA SALLE, AND HIS ASSASSINATION. 

It remained for Robert de La Salle, most illustrious of the French explorers, to trace 
the Mississippi to its mouth. This indomitable adventurer built and launched the first ship 



above Niagara Falls. He sailed westward 

through Lake Erie and Lake Huron, anchored 

in Green Bay, crossed Lake Michigan to the 

mouth of the St. Joseph, ascended that stream 

with a few companions, traversed the country 

to the upper Kankakee and dropped down 

that stream into the Illinois. Here disasters 

overtook the expedition and 

La Salle was obliged to return 

on foot to Fort Frontenac, a 

distance of nearly a thousand 

miles! During his absence 

Father Hennepin, a member 

of the company, traversed 

Illinois, found the Mississippi 

and ascended the great river 

as far as the falls of St. 

Anthou}'. 

In 1 68 1 La Salle reor- 
ganized his expedition and 
sailed down the Mississippi to 
the Gulf of Mexico. After- 
wards he made his way back 
to Quebec and then returned to France. He formed vast plans for colonizing the valley of 
the Mississippi and induced Louis XIV. to take an interest in the enterprise. Four ships, 
bearing two hundred and eighty emigrants, were equipped and left France in July of 1684. 
Beaujeu commanded the fleet and La Salle led the colony in person. His plan was to 
plant a new State on the banks of the lower INIississippi. The captain, however, was head- 
strong and against La Salle's entreaties steered the squadron out of its course to the west, 
so that instead of reaching the mouth of the Mississippi he entered the bay of Matagorda. 
Here a landing was effected, but the store-ship was wrecked and lost. Nevertheless a 
colony was established and Texas became a part of Louisiana. 

La Salle now made unwearied efforts to rediscover the Mississippi. It would appear 
that he was not well informed as to the best direction to be taken in order to reach the great: 
river. His expeditions were attended with many misfortunes; but his own resolute spirit 
remained tranquil in the midst of calamity. At last he set out with sixteen companions to 
cross the continent to Canada. The march began in January of 1687 and continued for 




FATHER JOLIET AND MARQUETTE DESCENDING THE MISSISSIPPI. 



iss 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OP THE UNITED STATES. 



3ixt\- days. The wanderers reached the basin of the Colorado. Discontent and treachery 
had in the meantime arisen in his camp. On the 20tli of March, while La Salle was at 
some distance from the rendezvous two conspirators of his own company hiding in the prairie 
grass took a fatal aim and shot the famous explorer dead in his tracks. Only seven of tlic 
adventurers succeeded in reaching a French settlement on the Mississippi. 

It was thus that the great inland circuit of the American lakes and rivers was revealed 
by exploration to the knowledge of men. France was not slow to occupy the vast region 
traversed by tlie Jesuit fathers. As early as 1688 military posts and missions had been 
established at Frontenac, at Niagara, at the straits of Mackinac and on the Illinois River. 
Before the middle of the eighteenth centur}' pennanent settlements had been planted by the 
French on the Maumce, at Detroit, at the mouth of the St. Joseph, at Green Bay, at Vincennes, 
on the lower Wabash, on the Mississippi at the mouth of the Kaskaskia, at Fort Rosalie— 
the present sight of Natchez — and on the Gulf of Mexico. 

JEALOUSIES BETWEEN FRANCE AND ENGUND. 

A second cause of the conflict about to ensue was the long-standing animosity of Prance 
and England. Tlie ri\alr>- between these two great States of Western Europe was as old a* 




LA SALLE AND HIS COMPA.NIONS ON THE MISSISSIPPI. 

the Dark .'Vges. The jealousy of the one for the other extended over both land and sea. 
Wlicn at tiie close of the seventeenth centur>' it was seen that the people of the English 
colonies outnumbered those of New France by nearly twenty to one the French government 
W.TS filled with envy. When by tlie enterprise of the Jesuit missionaries and explorers the 
Frcncli began to dot the basin of the Mississippi with fortresses and to monopolize the fur 
trade with the Indians England could not conceal her wrath. 

A third and more immediate cause of the oncoming war was the conflict of interests, and 
!K)on afterwards the conflict of anns between the frontiersmen of the two nations in the Ohio 
valley. These difficulties began about tlie year 1749. By this time the strolling traders 
and hunters of Virginia and Pennsylvania had made their way through the mountains and 
begun to frequent the Indian towns on the tributaries of the Ohio. The French traders 
of Canada visited the same villages and they and the English were brought into competi- 
tion in the purchase of furs from the natives. 



EPOCH OF INDEPENDENCE. 



159 



Virginia in accordance with the terms of her ancient charters claimed the whole country 
between her western borders and the southern shores of Lake Erie. The French fur 
gatherers of this district were under this construction intruders in the territories of another 
State. The Virginians were in no measure disposed to yield or modify their claim. In 
order to prevent further encroachment a number of the leading men of the colony joined 
themselves together in a body called the Ohio Company with a view to the immediate occu- 
pation of the disputed country. The leading members of the corporation were Govemoi 
Robert Dinwiddle, Lawrence and Augustus Washington and Thomas Lee, President of the 
Virginia Council. 

In March of 1749 George II. of England granted to this company an extensive tract 
of land covering an aggregate of five hundred thousand acres. The grant was to be located 



between the Kanawha and the Monongahela, or on the 



Before the company '^. 
the French "^^-"^•-" — *-* 




northern bank of the River Ohio, 
could send out a colony, however, 
of Canada despatched three 
hundred men to preoccupy the 
tipper Ohio valley. In the next 
year the Ohio Company sent out 
its first exploring party under 
Christopher Gist, who traversed 
the country and returned to 
Virginia in 1751. i^M-/?-!i 

The issue was now clear. 
It was simply who should pre- 
occupy and possess the region 
where the Ohio gathers his 
waters. The expedition of Gist 
was followed by vigorous counter 
movements on the part of the 
French. The latter built a fort 
called Le Boeuf on French 
creek, and another named Ven- 
ango on the Alleghany. About 
the same time the country' south 
of the Ohio was a second time 
explored by Christopher Gist 
and a party of armed sur\'eyors. 
In 1753 the English constructed a road from Wills's creek through the mountains, and 
the first -,mall colony was planted on the Youghiogheny. 

THE ISSUES OF WAR. 

All of these movements proceeded in superb disregard of the rights of the native 
rat^s. The Indians were greatly alarmed at this double intrusion of the whites into their 
country-. Thus far the English rather than the French had secured the favor of the red 
men ; but the allegiance of the latter was uncertain. In the spring of 1753 the Miami 
tribes, under the leadership of a chieftain called the Half-King, met Benjamin Franklin at 
Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and made a satisfactory treaty with the English ; but the ties thui 
established were, as the sequel showed, but slight and easily broken. 



ASSASSINATION OF LA SALLE. 



i6o 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE LWITED STATES. 



The great diflBculty thus precipitated between the French and the English in the Ohio 
valley was for some time almost unnoticed and unknown by the parent nations. The people 
of the English colonies, however, were greatly excited. The Virginians were ready for 
war, but Governor Uiuwiddie determined in the first place to tr)- diplomacy. He would 
send a fonual remonstrance to the French authorities warning them to withdraw and stand 
off from the territory belonging to Virginia. A paper was drawn up setting forth th« 
nature and validitv of the lui^lisli claim to the valley of the river Ohio, and warning the 




CUIltF HAI,F-KING OP THE MJAMIS CONXLUDING A TREATY WITH THE ENGUSH. 

French against further intnision. The young sur\'eyor, George Washington, was called 
upon by the governor to carr>' this paper from Williamsburg to General St. Pierre, com- 
mandant of the French at Prcsque Isle, on Lake Erie. 

On the last of October, 1753, the youthful Washington set out on his mission. He 
was attended bv four comrades, besides an interpreter and Christopher Gist, the g^iide. The 
party reached tlie Youghiogheny and pa.ssed down that stream to the site of Pittsburgh. 
At a place called Logstown Wa.shington held a friendly council with the Indians and then 
pressed forward to Venango. From this point he traversed the trackless forest to Fort Le 



EPOCH OF INDEPENDENCE. 



i6i 



Boeuf. Here the conference was held with St. Pierre. Washington was received with 
French politeness ; but the General refused to enter into any discussion of the great ques- 
tions involved in the remonstrance of Virginia. He was acting, he said, under military 
instructions, and would presently eject ever>- Knglishman from the Ohio valley. 

Bearing this unsatisfactor)' reply, Washington took leave of the French and returned 
to the Alleghany with Gist as his only companion. That stream was so filled with floating 
ice that crossing was extremely perilous. But regardless of the danger, the two intrepid 
travellers made a rude raft of logs which they launched and upon which they pushed their 

V ^, way through the ice to 

,-sv ■^:r> *\ '^^ v^^ I I , *1^^ opposite shore. Wash- 

ington left the river at 
Fort Venango and struck 
into the woods. Clad in 
the robe of an Indian ; 
sleeping with frozen 
clothes on a bed of pine 
brush ; guided at night 
by the North star ; fired 
at by a prowling savage 
from his covert ; lodging 
on an island in the Alle- 
ghany until the river was 
frozen over ; plunging 
again into the forest ; 
reaching Gist's settlement 
and then the Potomac — 
the strong-limbed young ambassador came back without wound or scar to the capital of 
Virginia. The defiant despatch of St. Pierre was laid before Governor Dinwiddie, and 
the first public service of Washington was accomplished. 

THE FOUNDING OF PITTSBURGH. 
The next movement of the English was made in the early spring of 1754. A volun- 
teer party led by an explorer named Trent reached the confluence of the Alleghany and the 
Monongahela, and built the first rude stockade on the site of Pittsburgh. After all the 
boasting and threats of the French, the English had beaten them and seized the key to the 
Ohio Valley. It was not to be expected, however, that such an occupation as that of 
Trent could long be made good in the face of the purpose and forces of the French. 
The successful establishment of the English fort at the juncture of the two rivers was a 
short-lived triumph. As soon as the Alleghany was opened for navigation to boats, the 
French fleet which had been prepared at Venango came sweeping down the river. Trent 
with his handful of men could offer no successful resistance. He was driven away by the 
French, who immediately occupied the place, felled the forest trees, built barracks and laid 
the foundations of Fort Du Quesne. 

As for Washington he had now been commissioned lieutenant-colonel of the Virginia 
militia and stationed at Alexandria to enlist recruits for a campaign into the disputed 
country. A reg iment of a hundred and fifty men had been enrolled ; but it was impossible 
to bring succor to Trent in time to save the post. On the 17th of April the commanding 
position at the head of the Ohio was surrendered, while Washington was not able to set 




^.Y*as-l^^'l*%' 



WASHINGTON FIRED AT BY A LURKING SAVAGE. 



i6; 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



•at from Wills's Creek until tlie latter part of the same month. Negotiations had now failed. 
Remonstrances had been tried in vain. The possession of the disputed territory was at 
length to be detennined by the harsher methods of war. 

But as yet there was no formal war. France and England were at peace. Dating 
from the spring of 1754, it was fully two years before the formal outbreak of the seven 
years' war in Europe; but the French and English colonies in America were already 
Involved in that conflict which was to decide the possession of the larger and better part 
•f the continent. For good reason, therefore, the struggle upon an account of which we 
mre now to enter has generally been called in American history the French and Indian War. 

It fell to Colonel Washington, acting under the authority of Virginia, to begin the 
conflict. According to his instnictions he was to proceed with a regiment of frontier 
•oldiers, like himself wholly inexperienced in war, to build a fort at the source of the Ohio 
and to repel all who should interrupt the English settlements in that part of the country- 
Late in April the young commander, now but twenty-two years of age, left Wills's Creek 
on the toilsome march for his destination. The men were obliged to drag their cannon. 
The roads were in miserable condition from the spring rains. Rivers were bridgeless and 
provisions insufiScient 

WASHINGTON FIRES THE FIRST GUN. 
Late in May, 1754, the English readied a place called the Great Meadows, in Penn- 
•ylvania. Here Washington learned that the French had anticipated his movement and 
were on the march to meet 



him. The little anny was 
halted. A stockade was im- 
mediately erected and named 
Fort Necessity. Washington 
then conferred with the 
Mingo chiefs and decided to 
strike the first blow. Indian 
guides led the way to where 
the French were encamped. 
The latter, however, were on 
tlie alert and sprang to arms. 
"Fire!" was the command 
of Washington and the first 
rolley of a great war went 
flying through the forest 
Jumonvilie, leader of the 
French and ten of his party 
were killed, and twent)'-one 
were made prisoners. 

Having won in the initial encounter, Washington returned to Fort Necessity and 
waited for reinforcements. His waiting, however, was fruitless. Only a single company 
of volunteers arrived. The young commander spent the time in cutting a road foi 
twenty miles in the direction of Pittsburgh. He had hoped that the Indians from the 
Muskinginn and the Miami country would join him in the movement against the French, 
but in this he was disappointed. His whole force numbered about four hundred men. 
While engaged in opening a road in the direction of the enemy Washington learned that 







WASHrNGTON ATTACKING THE FRENCH ENCAMPMENT. 



EPOCH OF INDEPENDENCE. 163 

the French general, De Villiers, was approaching with a large force and he therefore deemed 
it prudent to plant himself at Fort Necessity. Scarcely had he succeeded in reaching the 
fort when on the 3d of July De Villiers came in sight. The stockade was at ouce sur- 
rounded by the French. They stationed themselves on an eminence about sixty yards 
distant in a position from which they could fire down upon the English with fatal effect 
The Indian allies of De Villiers climbed into the tree-tops where in concealment they could 
see into the fort. For nine hours, during a rain storm, the assailants poured an incessant 
shower of balls upon the little band in the fort. Thirty of Washington's men were 
killed; but his tranquil presence encouraged the rest and the battle was continued. At 
length the French commander proposed a parley. Washington seeing that it would be 
impossible to hold out much longer, accepted the honorable terms of capitulation which 
were offered by De Villiers. On the 4th of July — significant day of the future — the Eng- 
lish garrison, retaining all its accoutrements marched out of the little fort so bravely 
defended and withdrew from the country. 

Meanwhile a Congress of the American colonies had been called to meet at Albany. 
The objects had in view were twofold: first to renew the treaty with the Iroquois confed- 
eracy, and secondly, to stir up the colonial authorities to some sort of concerted action 
against the French. The colonists had become convinced of a disposition on the part of 
the Iroquois to go over to the enemy. The recent reverses had encouraged the Indians 
to renounce their alliance with the English. It was clear that something must be done 
speedily or the flag of England could never be borne into the vast regions west of the 
Alleghanies. 

The Albany Congress was not wanting in great abilities. No such venerable and 
dignified body of men had ever before assembled on the American continent. There were 
Hutchison of Massachusetts, Hopkins of Rhode Island, Franklin of Pennsylvania and 
others scarcely less distinguished. After a few days' consultation the Iroquois chieftains, 
though but half satisfied were induced to renew their treaty. They promised to remain 
faithful to the whites in the war with the French and then departed to their own villages. 

AN AMERICAN UNION PROPOSED. 

Already the notion of an American U nion had appeared in the vision of the thoughtfuL 
Could the American colonies be united in a single government ? This question came be- 
fore the Albany Convention. On the loth of Juh' Benjamin Franklin laid before the com- 
missioners the draught of a general constitution. His vast and comprehensive mind, more 
than any other, had realized the true condition and wants of the country, and he perceived 
that the thing demanded for the safety and future development of the colonies was a cen- 
tral government for all. How else could revenues be raised, annies be organized, and the 
common welfare be provided for ? 

According to the proposed plan of union, Philadelphia was to be the capital. The city 
was central and might be more easily reached than any other, even by the delegates of New 
Hampshire and Georgia. It was thought and argued that such delegates could reach the 
seat of government in fifteen or twenty days ! Slow-going old patriots ! The chief execu- 
tive of the new confederation was to be a governor-general appointed and supported by the 
King. The legislative authority was vested in a Congress, to be composed of delegates 
chosen triennially by the General Assemblies of the respective provinces. Each colonj 
should be represented in proportion to its contributions to the federal government; but d* 
colony should have fewer than two, or more than seven representatives in Congress, 

As to the distribution of powers, the right of apppmting all military officers and of 



164 



PKOPLK'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



interests of the British Crown 
Frencli must be repelled from 



retoinjj objectionable laws was lodged with the governor-general. On the other hand the 
apiwinUncnt of civil officers, the raising of troops, the levying of ta.xes, the superin- 
tendence of Indian affairs, the regulation of commerce, and all the general duties of gov- 
ernment slioukl belong to Congress. This body was to convene once a year, to choose its 
own officers, and remain in session not longer than si.K weeks. Franklin's plan contained 
too provision respecting the establishment of a general judiciary for the colonies. 

Copies of this constitution were at once transmitted to the several colonial capitals, and 
•ere everywhere received with disfavor. Nothing could more clearly illustrate the views 
tnd dispositions of the fathers at the middle of the eighteenth century than tlie reasons 
•rhich were assigned for the non-acceptance of Franklin's constitution. In Connecticut tlie 
paper was rejected. In Massachusetts it was opposed, and in New York coldly and indif- 
ferently adopted. The chief objection urged against the instrument was the power of veto 
given to the governor-general. Some thought that the consolidation of the colonies was too 
close, and that the tendency was to reestablish despotism. A few were of opinion that it 
was a covert project of the Crown to regain a lost ascendancy over the American Republics, 
and most were of opinion that the principles of Democracy would be endangered and local 
liberty destroyed by the establishment of a central government. Nor did the new constitu- 
tion fare any better in the mother country. The English Board of Trade rejected it with 
disdain, saying tliat the forward Americans were trying to make a government of their 
own ! 

By this time it had been discerned in England that the 
in America were seriously imperilled. It was clear that the 
the countries west of the Alleghanies or the better parts 
of the continent would be lost to English rule. It was 
determined to send at once a British aniiy to America, to 
accept the .service of such provincial troops as the colonies 
might be able to furnish, and to repel the aggressions of 
France along the western border. 

As yet, however, there had been no declaration of war. 
The ministers of France and England kept assuring each 
other of their peaceable intentions; but Louis XV. took 
care to send three thousand soldiers to Canada, and the 
British Government ordered General Edward Braddock to 
proceed to America with two regiments of regulars. The 
latter having arrived in the colonies met the governors in 
a conference at Alexandria, Virginia, and the plans of a 
campaign against the French were discussed and adopted.* 
On the last of May, 1755, Braddock set out from Cumber- 
Jandto recapture Fort Dn Qmsue from the Frencli. 

BATTLE BEFORE DU QUESNE AND DEATH OF BRADDOCK. 

The expedition was undertaken with full confidence and great spirit. The advance 
WBS made during the month of June, and by the 8th of July the English vanguard had 
reached a point within twelve miles of the position of the French. On the following day 
• The old house in Alexandria in which Braddock met the colonial governors is still preserved in statu quo. 
Tke room in which the conference was held is shown to visitors, and the traveller is able by imagination to restore 
Ike scene of a huiidre.l and thirty-seven years ago. Perhaps no other .\nierican house of the epoch of the Frencli 
■ail Indian war is Iwlter pn-scrved than this old wooden hotel which was used by Braddock as his headquarter* 
lA fJie lime of his arrival in America. 




BATTLK GROUND OF FRENCH AND 
INDIAN WAR, 1755. 



EPOCH OF INDEPENDENCE. 



165 



the English march was continued down the left bank of the Monongahela, and at nooa 
Braddock crossed the stream near the confluence of Turtle creek. Thus far he had noticed 
no signs of the presence of the enemy. 

The advance was now along a narrow road through the forest. Colonel Thomas Gage 
was in command of the vanguard. The country was uneven and thickly wooded. On 
either hand was a dense undergrowth of bramble and thicket; rocks and ravines; a hill on 
the right and a dry hollow on the left. A few guides led the advance, and some feeble 
flanking parties had been thrown out In the rear came the general with the main division 
of the anny, the artillery and the baggage. All at once a quick and heavy fire was heard 
in front. For the French and Indians, believing themselves unable to hold Fort Du Quesne, 
had gone forth and laid an ambuscade for the English. The place selected was a woody 
ravine, well adapted to protect those who were concealed in ambush, and to entrap the ap- 
proaching anny. The unsuspecting British marched directly into the net. 

The battle began with a panic. The English, unable to see the enemy, fired con- 
stantly, but at random. The French perceived at once the success of their plan and the 
manifest confusion of the invading army. Braddock hurried to the front, and rallied his 
men; but it was all in vain. They stood huddled together like sheep. In a short time the 
^ ^ \„.i--^ T \ forest was strewn with British dead. Out of eighty-two 
i^^^^^^^^ '^1. i ] officers, twenty-six were killed. Of all the aids, only Colonel 

Washington remained to distribute orders. It was evident 
that the French and Indians in ambush were coolly taking 
aim and shooting down the officers and men at will. Of the 
privates, seven hundred and fourteen had fallen. Braddock 
himself was mortally wounded. A retreat began at once, 
and Washington with all that remained of the Virginian 
rangers covered the flight of the army. The disaster waa 
complete, overwhelming, irremediable. 

It appears that the French and Indians were surprised 
at their own victory. The native chiefs on the next day 
returned to Fort Du Quesne, clad in the laced coats of the 
British officers. The savages after their manner had despoiled 
the dead of the battlefield, and left them unburied. The 
dying Braddock was borne along in the train of the fugitives. On the evening of the 
fourth day he expired, and was buried near Dunbar's camp. When the fugitives reached 
that place, the confusion and alarm were greater than ever. The artiller>', baggage and 
public stores were destroyed and a hasty retreat begun, first to Fort Cumberland, and 
afterwards to Philadelphia. The failure and ruin of the expedition could hardly have 
been more complete and irretrievable. 

EXILE OF THE ACADIANS. 
The reader will readily recall the conquest of Port Royal and Nova Scotia by the Eng^i 
Ksh. Though the authority of England was fully established in place of that of France, 
the French population continued as before greatly to outnumber their conquerors. The 
general result of the campaign had been to establish a British military occupation. When 
Braddock met the colonial governors at Alexandria, it was urged that the new expedition 
against Acadia would be necessary, in case of hostilities, in order to overawe the Frenck 
people and maintain British authority. With this end in view, an expedition was organized 
under Colonel Monckton, and in May of 1755 the squadron sailed with three thousand 
troops from Boston for the Bay of Fundy. 




SCENE OF BRADDOCK'S DEFEAT, 

1755- 



i66 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



The French had in the province two fortresses, called Beau-Sejour and Gaspereau. 
The commandant, De Vergor, had no intimation of the a])proach of the Enjjiish until the 
tquadron sailed 
Into the bay 
and anchored 
before the walls 
of Bean-Sejonr. 
On the 3d of 
June, 1755, the 
English forces 
effected a land- 
ing and made 
their way across 
Messagouche 
creek to begin 
the siege of the 
fortress, bnt no 
siege was neces- 
sary. Fear and 
confusion pre- 
Tailed among 
the garrison, 
and no success- 
ful resistance 
could be of- 
fered. Beau- 
Sejour capitu- 
lated and was 
■ a in e d Fort 
Cum be r land. 
The wliole of 
Nova Scotia 
was overrun in 
a brief cara- 
p a i g n and 
brought uuler 
dominion of the 
Euglisli na<^. 

Although 
this conquest 
had bcGji thus 
easily effected, 
the Frencli in- 



habitants 
ffreatly 
numbered 
English. 



still 
out 
the 




Governor l^awrence detennined, therefore, to bring about a different state of 
cucuuistances by drivnig the inhabitanLs into banishment In the first place an oath 



EPOCH OF INDEPENDENCE. 



167 




ISTHMUS OF ACADIA. 



of allegiance was demanded, and then the surrender of all the firearms and boats belong. 

ing to the French. British ships were then made ready to carry the French peasants 

into exile. The country about the isthmus was ruthlessly laid waste and the flying 

people driven into the larger towns. Wherever a considerable number could be got 

together they were compelled to go on shipboard. At the village of Grand Pre more 

than nineteen hundred people were driven into the boats 
at the point of the bayonet. Wives and children, old 
men and mothers, the sick and the infinn, all shared 
the common fate. More than three thousand of the 
Acadians were carried away by the British squadron and 
scattered in helplessness and starvation among the English 
colonies as far south as Louisiana. Thus in complete 
disaster to the cause of France ended the second campaign 
which had been planned at Alexandria 

The third expedition outlined at the same conference 
was to be conducted by Governor Shirley, of Massa- 
chusetts, against the French at Fort Niagara. Early 
in August the governor at the head of two thousand men 

set out from Albany. Arriving at Oswego the commander spent four weeks in preparing 

boats. Then tempests prevailed and sickness broke out in the camp. The Indiaii'v 

deserted the standard of the English, and late in October the provincial forces led bj 

Shirley marched homeward without striking a blow. 

THE ATTACK ON FORT EDWARD. 
The fourth expedition had been intrusted by Braddock to General William Johnson, 

of New York. The object of the movement was to capture Crown Point and drive the 

French from Lake Champ- 
lain. Early in August 

Johnson, at the head of his 

fiorces, reached the Hudson 

above Albany and built 

Port Edward. Thence he 

proceeded to Lake George 

and established a military 

camp. To this place the 

artillery and stores of the 

expedition were brought 

forward. Meanwhile Count 

Dieskau, commandant of 

(he French at Crown Point, 

•dvanced with fourteen 

hundred French, Canadians 

■nd Indians against Fort 

Edward. General Johnson ^^hu of the acadians from grand pre. 

Knt Colonel Williams and Hendrick, chief of the Mohawks, with twelve hundred men 

to the relief of the fort. On the 8th of September Williams's regiment and the Mohawks 

were ambushed by Dieskau's forces and driven back with loss to Johnson's camp. 

The victorious Canadians and French regulars followed and attacked the English 




i68 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

position. A severe engagement ensued. For five hours the battle was incessant. Nearly 
all of Dieskau's men were killed. At last the English troops made a sortie and completed 
the rout of the enemy. Dieskau was mortally wounded. Two hundred and sixteen of the 
linglish were killed, but the victory was complete. General Johnson proceeded to build on 
the site of his camp Fort William Henr>-. In the meantime the French fell back, but 
fortified Ticonderoga. Such was the condition of affairs at the close of the first yeai 
of the war. 

With the beginning of 1756 the command-in-chief of the English forces was given to 
Governor Sliirloy. Virginia relied mostly on her own provincials, whom she placed under 
coinniand of Washington and sent into the valley of the Shenandoah to repel the French 
and Indians. The Pennsylvanians chose Franklin for their colonel, built a fort on the 
Leliigli, and made a successful campaign. Tlie expeditions wliich were planned for the 
year embraced the conquest of Quebec and the capture of Forts Frontenac, Toronto, Niagara 
and Du Quesne. 

Meanwhile the British government took up the cause and sent out two battalions of 
regulars to New York. These arrived in the spring of 1756. The Earl of Loudoun was 
appointed commander-in-chief of all the forces in America. General Abercrombie waa 
second in rank. On the 17th of May in this year Great Britain, after nearly two years o^ 
actual hostilities, involving campaigns and conquests and loss of life and armies, made e 
formal declaration of war against France. 

In July Lord Loudoun took command of the colonial army. After the death of 
Dieskau the Marquis of ^lontcalm succeeded to the command of the French, and on hii 
first campaign besieged and captured Oswego. Si.x vessels of war, three hundred boats, a 
hundred and twenty cannon and three chests of money were the fruits of his victory. 
During this summer the Delaware Indians of western Pennsylvania broke into hostility and 
killed or captured more than a thousand people. In August Colonel Armstrong at the 
head of three hundred volunteers marched against the Indian town of Kittaning, and on 
the Rth of December routed the savages with great losses. The village was burned and 
the spirit of tlie Indians completely broken. 

STRANGE INACTION OF THE ENGLISH. 

Ix)rd Ivoudoim planned for the summer of 1757 the conquest of Louisburg. He had 
under his connnand an army of six thousand regulars and abundant resources in the way of 
fupijly and transportation. His fleet left New York on the proposed expedition on the 20th 
of Jime and came to Halifax where the commander was joined by Admiral Holbourn with a 
fleet of sixteen men-of-war. Five thousand additional troops fresh from the armies of 
Europe were on board the squadron; but Loudoun with amazing incompetency, instead of 
proceeding at once to Cape Breton, tarried awhile at Halifax,* and then sailed back to New 
York without striking a blow or even seriously attempting to accomplish the work in wliich 
he was engaged. 

If paralysis seemed to rest upon the English commander it was very different with the 
French. The Marquis of Montcalm collected for his campaign of this year seven thousand 
regulars, Canadians and Indians. With this force he advanced into New York for the cap- 
ture of Fort William Henry. This stronghold was held by five hundred men under Colonel 
Monro. For six days the French besieged the fort until the ammunition of the garrison 
was expended and nothing remained but to capitulate. Honorable terms were granted by 

• It was here tliat I/inl Loudoun had a large area of the cultivable lauds abowt Halifax planted in onions IMt 
kk iDf u might take the scurvy I 



EPOCH OF INDEPENDENCE. 



169 



Hie captors. On the 9th of August they took possession of the fortress. Among the sup. 
plies of the English was a quantity of spirits. In spite of the exertions of Montcalm the 




Indians, becoming intoxicated, 
fell upon the prisoners and • 
massacred thirty of them in 
cold blood. 

On the whole the war was 
going greatly in favor of 
France. Such had been the 
success of the French arms 
that the English had not at . 
this juncture a single hamlet left in the whole basin of the St. Lawrence. The same 
was true in the west. Every cabin where English was spoken had been swept out of 



170 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



8EIUK 

-s-of-r- 

LOCISBCBO 

lili 



J., jjt It £ 

.... .. .. ^ 








°^:sA.ji us 



3^^^ 



the Ohio Valley. At the close of 1757 France possessed twenty times as much territory 
in .Vnicrica as did England and five times as much as England and Spain together ! 

The ill-success of England thus far in the war was doubtless attributable to the 
inefficiency of the government, resulting, as it did, in the appointment of incompetent cona- 
manders and inadequate preparations for conquering the French in America. In 1757, 
however, a change occurred in British politics and William Pitt was placed at the head of 
the ministr)-. A new spirit was at once diffused in the management and conduct of the war. 
Loudoun was deposed from the command of the American army. General Abercrombie 
was made his successor, but the main reliance was placed 
on an efficient corps of subordinate connnanders. Admiral 
Boscawen was put in charge of the fleet. General 
Amherst was given a division. Young Lord Howe was 
appointed to rank next to Abercrombie. James Wolfe, 
also in his youth, was made brigadier, and Colonel Richard 
Montgomery' was put at the head of a regiment. 

CAPTURE OF LOUISBURG AND ASSAULT ON TICONDEROGA. 

The campaigns planned for 175S were three in number. 
The first was to undertake the capture of Louisburg; the ""■" — ^ 

second to reduce Crown Point and Ticonderoga, and the third to recapture Fort Du 
Qucsne from the F'rench. In the latter part of May General Amherst arrived at Hali- 
fa.\ with an army of ten thousand men. In the brief space of six days the British fleet 
was anchored before Louisburg. Soon afterwards three French vessels were burned 
in the harbor. The town was bombarded until it was reduced to a heap of ruins. On 
the 28th of July Louisburg, together with Cape Breton and Prince Edward's Island, were 
surrendered to Great Britain. The garrisons, numbering about six thousand men, became 
prisoners of war. The expedition had been speedily crowned with signal success for the 
English. 

Meanwhile General Abercrombie with fifteen thousand men moved forward in the 
beginning of July against Ticonderoga. On the morning of the 6th of the month the Eng- 
lish fell in with the French picket line and a severe skirmish 
ensued in which the French were overwhelmed and Lord 
Howe was killed in the onset. On the morning of the 8th 
the English army was arranged for an assault on Ticon- 
deroga. The country round about was broken and un- 
favorable for military operations, but obstacles were over- 
come and a desperate battle was fought continuing for four 
^- hours, until at six o'clock in the evening the English 

Rui.-w OF rico.M>uKooA. ^,,ere finally repulsed. The loss on the side of the assailants 

amounted in killed and wounded to nineteen hundred and sixteen. In no battle of the 
Revolution did the British have so large a force engaged or meet so terrible a loss. 

With the failure of the assault the English anny retreated to Fort George. Soon after- 
wards a division of three th.ousand men under command of Colonel Bradstreet was sent 
against Fort Frontenac on Lake Ontario. This movement of the English was attended with 
complete success. Fort Frontenac was only able to endure a siege of two days' duration. 
The fortress was taken and demolished. The capture of the place was regarded by the 
English as a counterpoise to their failure at Ticonderoga. 




EPOCH OF INDEPENDENCE. 



171 



WONDERFUL COURAGE OF MAJOR STRABO. 
About tlie same time Major Strabo harassed the enemy by several bold strokes and 
sudden descents upon their shipping in the St. Lawrence. One of his desperate enter- 
prises was the capture of a French sloop that was conveying a company of Indians and a 
large quantity of supplies to Quebec. At the time of this undertaking Strabo was march- 
ing down the river on the New York side with a company of ten men, when seeing a French 
schooner in the oiEng he signaled it to land. The officer in charge suspecting no treachery 




WONDERFUL EXPLOIT OF MAJOR STRABO. 

came ashore and was generously treated by Strabo with some choice mm; but at an auspi. 
cious moment he gave a sign at which his men rushed out of their concealment and in a 
trice made the officer and his men prisoners. Tying them and leaving them on shore, 
Strabo boarded the schooner and set out in pursuit of a French sloop en route for Quebec. 
Being a master of the French tongue Strabo had no difficulty, after approaching near 
the vessel, in convincing the commander that he was bearing a message to Ralfe at Quebec. 



172 



PEOPLE'S HLSTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



Under pretence that he desired to communicate confidentially with the sloop's officer he 
was permitted to draw along side. In the next moment his men fired on the exposed 
crew and lashing the schooner to the sloop boarded the prize so quickly that no time was 
given for defence. Strabo drove nearly all the Indians into the waters, killed most of 
the crew and then setting fire to the schooner he sailed away on the sloop with all its stores 
and brought her into the port of Louisburg. 

I The third expedition of this year was entrusted to General Forbes. His division. 
numbered nine tliousand men and his part in the campaign was the capture of Fort Du' 
Quesne. The Virginia provincials were again placed under command of Colonel Wash- 
ington. The main body of the anny moved slowly; but Major Grant with the advance 
pressed on in the direction of Fort Du Quesne. When within a few miles of that place, 
he ran carelessly into an ambuscade in which he lest a third of his forces. But it was not 
to be expected that the game which the French and Indians had so successfnlly played with 
Braddock could be repeated. 

Washington now took the lead and on the 24th of November reached a point within 
ten Tniles of the fort. During that night the garrison of Du Quesne, apprised of the 
approach of the British anny, took the alann, burned the fortress, embarked in boats and 
dropped down the Ohio. On the 25th the victorious English marched in, raised the ban- 
ner of St. (ieorge and named the place Pittsburgh. A summary' of the movements of tlie 
year 1758 shows that in two of the principal campaigns the English had been overwhelm- 
ingly successful, while in the third the result was a drawn battle, the French being 
victorious before Ticonderoga and losing on the other hand their fortress and garrison at 

Frontenac. 

CAPTURE OF NIAGARA. 

General Amherst now succeeded Abercrombie in command of the American army. 
Great BriLiin became terribly in earnest in the prosecution of the war against the French. 

A bloody incident of this year (1759) transpired in 
the vicinity of Fort Miller, on the Hudson River six miles 
from Schuylerville. A party of soldiers from the garrison 
went fishing in a clear stream of water eight miles from 
tlie fort. While thus engaged they were attacked by a 
band of Indians who were in concealment in the thick 
covert on the bank. Being wholly unprepared for resist- 
ance the soldiers were panic stricken at the first fire 
and nine were killed who were afterwards scalped and 
their bodies left lying where they fell. On occount of this 
tatal occurrence the stream has ever since been called 
^Bloody Run." 

By the beginning of summer, 1759, the British and colonial forces under arms num-, 
bcrcd nearly fifty thousand men. On the other side the entire French army scarcely 
exccetled seven thousand. Three campaigns were planned for the year. General Prideaux 
was appointed to lead an expedition against Niagara. The commander-in-chief at the 
head of the main division was to proceed against Ticonderoga and Crown Point. General 
Wol'e. with his contingent was sent up the St. Lawrence for the capture of Quebec. 

The first expedition was crowned with success. General Prideaux succeeded in mid- 
•umnicr in the investment of Fort Niagara. The French commander, D" Aubr>', with twelve 
Uuudred men, came to the relief of the fort. On the 15th of the month, Prideaux was 




BLOODY RUN. 



EPOCH OF INDEPENDENCE. 



173 



killed by the bursting of a gun, and the command devolved on Sir William Johnson. Ob 

the 24th, the French army came in sight, and a bloody battle was fought in which the 

French were completely routed. On the following day Niagara capitulated, and the garri- 
son to the number of six hundred became prisoners of war. 

The central division, numbering eleven thousand men, marched against Ticonderoga. 
_ The army was debarked before the fortress 

on the 22d of July; but the French did not 
dare to stand against such overwhelming 
numbers. After four da}-s the garrison, hav- 
ing partly destroyed the fortifications, abandoned 
Ticonderoga, and retreated to Crown Point. 
On the 31st of July they deserted this place 
also, and fell back to Isle-aux-Noix, in the 
river Sorel. 

The third division of the British forces 
was led forward by General Wolfe to the St 
Lawrence. In the early spring he began the 
ascent of that river. His division consisted 
of nearly eight thousand men, assisted by a 
fleet of forty-four vessels. On the 27th of 
June, Wolfe reached the Isle of Orleans, four 
miles below Quebec, where the English camp 
was pitched at the upper end of the island. 
The fleet gave the English command of the 
river and the southern bank was undefended. 
On the second night after Wolfe's arrival, he 
sent General Monckton to seize Point Levi. 
From this position the lower town was soon 

reduced to ruins and the upper town much injured; but the fortress held out and some 

other plan of attack had to be invented. 

BATTLE OF QUEBEC. 
General Wolfe in the early part of July crossed the St Lawrence and encamped near 

the mouth of the Montmorenci. This stream was fordable at low water, and the English 

undertook to force a crossing in the face of the French, 

but were repulsed with serious losses. Wolfe was obliged 

to withdraw his camp, and again change his plans. He 

nov.' fell into a fever, and for some time was confined to 

his tent. A council was held, and the young general 

proposed a second assault, but was overruled. It was 

then detennined to ascend the St. Lawrence by night, 

and if possible gain the Plains of Abraham in the rear of 

the city. 

The lower camp of the English was accordingly broken 

«p, and on the 6th of September the troops were conveyed 

from that position to Point Levi. In the next place 

Wolfe succeeded in transferring his army without the 

knowledge of the French to a point several miles up the river. He then examined the 




GEN. JAMES WOLFE. 




,j5^5~W.^ La 






^;#.^''^^ 



VICINITY OF QUEBEC, 1759. 



174 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Horthern bank of the St. Lawrence, and discovered a pathway up the steep cliffs leading 
to tlie plains in the rear of Quebec* 

On the night of tlie I2th of September the English forces again embarked and dropped 
down the river to the place now called Wolfe's Cove. It was with the greatest difficulty 
that the soldiers, supporting themselves by the bushes and rocks, clambered up the preci- 
pice. The Canadian guard on the summit was easily dispersed, and in the dawn of morn- 
ing Wolfe marshalled his army for battle. Montcalm was in amazement when he heard the 
news. Tiie French forces were hastily brought from the trenches on the Montmorenci and 
thrown between Quebec and the English. 

The battle was begun without delay. At the first there was a cannonade of an hour's 
duration, and then Montcalm, with his inadequate forces attempting to turn the English 
flank, was beaten back. The Canadian provincials and their Indian allies were soon routed. 
The French regulars wavered, and were thrown into confusion. Wolfe led his army in per- 
son. Early in the engagement he was wounded in the wrist, but pressed on without atten- 
tion to his injur)'. Again he was struck, but still kept his place at the head of the column. 
At the moment of victory a third ball pierced his breast, and he sank to the earth. "They 
run," said the attendant who bent over him. "Who run?" was the response. "Tlie 
French are flying everywhere," replied the officer. "Do they run already? Then I die 
happy," said the expiring hero. 

Montcalm shared a like fate. Attempting to rally his regiments he was struck with a 
ball and fell mortally wounded. "Shall I survive?" said he to his surgeon. " Only a 
few hours at most," answered the attendant. "So much the better," replied the heroic 
Frcnciiman; " I shall not live to witness the surrender of Quebec! " 

Five days after the battle the city capitulated and an English garrison took possession 
of the citadel. France soon made an unsuccessful effort to recover her loss. In the spring 
of 1760 a F'rench ann\' gained a position a few miles west of Quebec and the English were 
driven within the defences, but the city was soon reinforced and the assailants were beaten 
back. In the year following the capture by Wolfe, General Amherst conducted a successful 
expedition against Montreal, the last important post of France in the valley of the St. Law- 
rence. On tlie 8tli of September the place was taken and the whole of Canada passed undei 
the dominion of England. 

A REAPPORTIONMENT OF THE COUNTRY. 
Thus with the great campaigns of 1759—60 the French empire in America was subverted. 
New France passed away. The result was reached by the determined and powerful support 
which Great Britian gave to her American interests and by the feeble, wavering and 
unworthy efforts of France to support her own cause in the New World. There came to 
pass a vast disparity between the contending pr.rties. At one time the English and Ameri- 
can provincials were as twenty to one to the F^rench and at nearly the same time the Ameri- 
can territorial possessions of France were as twenty to one to those of her riwil. There was 

• It is imirated that while the RtiRlish fleet on this memorable night were silently glitling down the St. Law- 
rence under the dark shadow of the overhanging banks the brave and imaginative Wolfe, standing in the bow of 
his boat and discovering with the keen instincts of a prophet the probabilities of his fate, repeated over and ovei 
to his conipainons the stanza from Gray's Elegy in a Coiinliy Churchyard, which had been published only a shorl 
time before iu England : 

" The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power 

And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, 
Await alike the inevitable hour ; 

The paths of glory lead but to the grave." 



EPOCH OF INDEPENDENCE. 



175 



thus on the side of England the concentration of resources and power and on the side of 
France the dissipation of her diminished energies over a vast and indefensible region of 
country. 

But while the vicissitudes of war favored the English in all their latter conflicts with 
the French other harassments vexed the settlers in sections not within the immediate 
territory in dispute. In the spring of 1 760 the Cherokee Indians of eastern Tennessee arose 
against the English and besieged Fort lyondon which was forced to capitulate, but no sooner 
was the earrison disanned than the Indians in violation of the terms of surrender massacred 
the greater number and carried oflf the others into captivity. To punish the savages for this 




THE DEATH OF GENERAL WOLFE. 



atrocity Colonels Grant and Montgomery were sent against them, who after a vigorous cam- 
paign compelled the Indians to sue for peace. 

PONTIAC'S CONSPIRACY AND ATTACK ON DETROIT. 
But after the overthrow of the French it devolved upon the English to take actual 
possession of all the territory bordering on the Great Lakes and Major Roberts was accord- 
ingly despatched by General Amherst with two hundred rangers to receive the surrender of 
the outposts. In this duty Major Roberts met with no resistance and by the close of 1760 
the English flag waved above all the forts along the lakes. No sooner, however, had the 
occupation been accomplished when the English began a system of petty persecutions upoa 
the Indians, whose violent resentment was speedily aroused, excited, as it was, not more by 
tbeir ill-treatment than by the instigations of the French, who though conquered becam« 



i-'6 



PKOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



even more bitterly hostile in their feelings towards the English. In the siuuiuer of 1761 
the Senecas and Wyandots conspired to capture Detroit by treachery and massacre the gar- 
rison, but the plot was revealed and thwarted by the connnandant, Colonel Campbell. Soon 
after another attempt was made, but likewise failed through timely warning given by a 
friendly Indian. Thereafter peace prevailed for a while though at no time was security felt, 
the ugly temper of the Indians being indicated by mutterings of discontent which gave con- 
stant fear of an outbreak. 

Towards the close of 1762 Pontiac, chief of the Ottawas, a brave and sagacious warrior, 
conceived the design of uniting all the tribes from the Alleghanies to the Mississippi into 
one confederacy and hurling them in resistless bodies against the English by attacking simul- 
taneously all the forts and settlements. The 7th of May, 1763, was appointed to begin the 
general massacre, but at the last moment the tribes refused, through rivalries and old enmi- 
ties, to act in concert and ultimate failure was the consequence, though the direct result was 
terribly disastrous. 

Pontiac reserved for himself the most dangerous task of capturing Detroit and butcher- 
ing the garrison and so adroitly did he perfect the details of his horrible plot that theii 
e .\ e c u t i o n must have 
proved successful but for 
the timely exposure of 
the conspiracy. On the 
day preceding the time 
set for the treacherous 
and murderous act an 
Ojibway girl visited 
fort bearing a pair 
moccasins which she 
signed as a present 
Major Gladwyn, the com- 
mandant. By this subtci 
fugo she gained his prt-^ 
ence and when the two 
were alone she revealed 
to tiiat ofFiccr the particu- 
lars of the plot. Tlie 
major lost no time in 
putting the fort in the most thorough state of defence and when Pontiac and his band 
sought to put their treacherous plans into execution on the following day they confronted 
a strong force of English fully prepared to receive them, every citizen as well as soldier 
being drawn up in line of battle. 

Pontiac withdrew from the fort mortified at the failure of his plans, but unwilling to 
abandon his purpose he invested Detroit with nearly two thousand Indians and entered upon 
a siege of the place. Some desperate sorties and counter assaults characterized the siege, 
in which the Indians lost heavily and after three days of fruitless effort to burn (in wliich 
they partially succeeded) or reduce the place they withdrew to join other bands of Indians 
who were doing great execution elsewhere. Under the attacks which followed and were 
led by Pontiac every fort in the west except Niagara, Detroit and Fort Pitt was cap- 
tured by the Indians, who in nearly every instance massacred the garrisons. 




X POSING THE CONSPIRACY. 



EPOCH OF INEEPENDENCE. 



177 



Though the fighting on land between France and England practically ceased with the 
capture of Quebec and the surrender of the lake forts the conflict continued on the sea with 
almost invariable success to the English arms until the loth of February, 1863, when a 
treaty of peace was made between the two nations at Paris by which all the French posses- 
sions in North America eastward of the Mississippi from its source to the River Iberville and 
thence through Lakes Maurepas and Pontchartrain to the Gulf of Mexico were surrendered 
to Great Britain. It was the transfer of an empire. At the same time Spain, with whom 
England had been at war, ceded East and West Florida to the English crown. As reciprocal 
with this provision France was constrained by Great Britain to make a cession to Spain of 
all that vast territory west of the Mississippi known as the Province of Louisiana. It thus 
^happened that the Spanish possessions on our continent were vastly extended, while those 
of France were extinguished. The French king lost his entire empire in the New World 
and England became dominant over all east of the Mississippi. West of the Father of 
Waters Spain took all for her own. 

As yet the question had not publicly risen of the independence of the English States 
In North America; but already, before the treaty of Paris, namely, in 1775, John Adams, 
at that time a young school teacher in Connecticut wrote this in his diary: "In another 
century, all Europe will not be able to subdue us. The only way to keep us from setting 
up for ourselves is to disunite us." Significant words these were, containing in them the 
genns of the great struggle which was already at the door, which, indeed, had already begun, 
but of the presence of which neither the British government nor the American colonists 
were as yet aware. 

The French and Indian War — so called in the phraseology of American history — was 
one of the most important in the annals of mankind. By this conflict it was decided that 
the decaying institutions of the middle ages should not prevail in the countries west of the 
Atlantic and that the powerful language, laws and liberties of the English-speaking race 
should be planted forever in the vast domains of the New World. 




CHAPTER XII. 
CAUSES OF THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 



/?J^^\ 




have said, the war of American Independence — tht Revo 
lution so-called — by which the American colonies wen 
detached from their allegiance to the mother country 
and at length made a nation, began with those con- 
ditions and circumstances which first brought the 
Americans into union of effort and purpose. In the 
preceding chapter we have seen how the colonists 
discovered in themselves the elements of unity and 
strength. The provincial soldiers soon found out 
that the British regulars were not superior to them- 
selves in battle — that the discipline of the regulars from the 
mother country was compensated by the knowledge which 
the Americans possessed of the manners and tactics of the 
enemy. 

To the British regulars the nsm arena of war in America 
was full of unknown perils and pitfalls. The continent was an expanse of woods and 
mountains and rivers. The Indian method of warfare was unheard of and at first despised. 
The Braddock campaign showed clearly that the provincials, whose bad reputation with 
the British officers had become traditional, were really the most available contingent of 
he anny. 

Many things tended in the sixth and seventh decades of the century to develop a 
aational consciousness in America. Nations are even as men. They have their periods 
of childhood and adolescence. At length, with growth and development, consciousness 
ftppeani. True, it were difficult to discover ftom what sources in the individual life per- 
•onal consciousness at length arises; and so in the case of nations. For the present it 
suffices to point out the fact that the time at which we have now arrived in American 
histor)' was the time when consciousness appeared — consciousness of individuality-, of 
itrength, of personal will and ultimately of independent right. 

Theie is a great popular error in underestimating the character and significance of the 
French and Indian War. As matters of fact the conflict was of longer duration than the 
Revolution proper. The forces engaged — the English forces — were greater in numbers and 
equipment than were at any time seen in America during the war of Independence. Th« 
battles fought, though not more numerous, were on the whole more determined and much 
more bloody. As has been said, the losses in the battle of Ticonderoga, almost unknown 
as it is in the popular memor\% were much more severe and destructive of life than any 
tingle conflict of the Revolution. 

A REMARKABLE CHANGE OF POLITICAL FEELING. 

We are here to take up the narrative after the treaty of Paris and to note the causes 
which led to the rebellion and final independence of the American colonies. After the 

(17SI 



EPOCH OF INDEPENDENCE. 179 

treaty of peace there was a brief period of recuperation. The British armies were with- 
drawn from America to be xised abroad. It is now clear in the retrospect that the rela- 
tions between the soldiers of the colonies and the foreign regulars had never been gracious 
or aereeable. The British officers were disliked and in some instances the dislike rose — -or 
sank — to the level of hatred. 

It is one of the strange circumstances of the history of these times that the French, the 
enemy with whom the American colonists were for several years engaged in bloody war, 
appear not to have been so seriously disliked as the British, under whose patronage and by 
whose overwhelming power and alliance the war was brought to a successful end. We shall 
see with astonishment how in the course of a very few jears all the conditions were reversed 
and a new sentiment created by v/hich the French were converted into friends and the 
British made enemies — a state of feeling and opinion which much more than a century of 
time has not availed to obliterate. 

The epoch upon which we now enter was one in which existing institutions were 
rapidly transformed. Many old things passed away. A new man and a new society were 
born out of a sort of fruitful anarchy, as if from a soil long prepared with the care of the 
husbandman. There was a civil and social revolt of the people against the existing order, 
and in particular against the institution of monarchy which had so long intrenched itself 
as the prevailing political form among the western nations. 

Our Revolution of 1776 was one of the leading incidents of a large and world-wide 
movement which has not yet by any means reached its limits. It is important that we 
should note with some care at least the more immediate causes of our conflict with the 
mother country. Doubtless the first and most general of these was the claim and exercise 
of the right of arbitrary government by Great Britain, which "right" was denied and 
resisted by the colonies. At the first the enunciation of such a right on the part of the 
mother country was a matter of little importance. The claim was theoretical rather than 
practical. The colonies had not yet reached the stage of autonomy, but when the English 
government began to force the principle in practice upon full-grown States having more 
than two hundred thousand inhabitants within their borders, and lying at a distance of 
three thousand miles from the mother country, the colonies resisted. 

The qtiestions involved in the coming controversy began to be openly discussed about 
the time of the treaty of Aix la Chapelle in 1748, and from that period until the outbreak 
of hostilities in 1775 each year witnessed, in some form, a renewal of the agitation. But 
there were also many subordinate causes tending to bring on a conflict. First among these 
may be named the influence of France, which was constantly exerted so as to excite a spirit 
of resistance in the American colonies. Doubtless the French king would never have 
agreed to the treaty of 1763, by which Canada was ceded to Great Britain, had it not been 
with the ulterior hope and aim of securing American Independence. 

THE FORESHADOWING OF REBELLION. 

It was the theory of France that by giving up Canada to the other English colonies in 
America, the whole group would become so strong as to renounce their allegiance to the 
crown. Such a result was feared by the British government. More than once it was 
openly proposed in Parliament to recede Canada to France for the avowed purpose of check- 
ing the ominous growth of the American States. "There, now," said the French states- 
man Vergennes, when the treaty of 1763 was signed, "we have arranged matters for an 
American rebellion in which England will lose her empire in the west!" Such was the 



i8o PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

prescience of the shrewd politicians of V/estern Europe who played at dice with our repub- 
lican commonwealths in tlie seventh decade of tlie eighteenth century-. 

A second cause leading to our war for independence may be discovered in the natural 
disposition and inherited character of the colonists. They "vere for ^.I'.e most part republi- 
cans in political sentiment and dissenters in religion. The people of the home country 
were monarchists and high-churchmen. The American colonists had never seeu the king 
who ruled them, or any king. The broad Atlantic lay between them and the British min- 
istr)'. Their dealings for a century past and more with the royal officers had been such as 
to engender a dislike, not only for the officers themselves, but for the system of govern- 
ment which they represented. The people of America had not forgotten, could not well 
forget, the circumstances of hardship and abuse under which their ancestors had come to the 
New World. Moreover, for six generations the colonists had managed their own affairs. 
They had been accustomed to popular assemblies and to certain methods of conducting 
public business until the instinct of democratic management had become hereditar>-. The 
experiences of the French and Indian war had shown the Americans that their own best 
reliance in the day of trouble was themselves — tliat they were able to defend themselves and 
their country against aggression. 

There was a natural evolution of public opinion in the colonics tending to indepen- 
dence. The more advanced thinkers came to believe that a complete separation from 
England was not only possible but desirable. The remark of young John Adams, recorded 
in his diar)' for 1755, has already been quoted on a former page. His opinion and the 
opinions of others like him were at first expressed only in private, then by hints in pam- 
phlets and newspapers, and at last publicly and ever}'where. It is needless to say, however, 
that ideas so radical and seemingly dangerous were accepted by the people at large very 
slowly, cautiously, reluctantly. Not until the war of the Revolution had actually begun 
could the majority of the colonists be brought to declare for independence. 

THE POLITICAL CHARACTER OF GEORGE III. 

Another subordinate cause of the coutlict with tlie mother country was found in the 
personal character and political methods of the King, George III., who ascended the 
English throne in 1760, and who proved to be one of the worst monarchs of modern times. 
His notions of government were altogether despotic. He was by mental constitution a 
stubborn, thick-headed, stupid man, in whose mind the notion of human rights was almost 
wholly wanting. His beliefs and aphorisms were derived from the Middle Ages. It was 
well nigh impossible for him to conceive of a magnanimous public project or to appreciate 
the value and desirability of civil liberty. In his personal life he \vas a man of exemplary 
habits, not incapable of domestic affections and fidelity ; but his public administration was 
as bad as any which Europe had seen since the death of Louis XIV. His reign of sixty 
years was as otlious to patriotism as it was long in duration. It was a part of his public 
policy to employ only those who were the narrow-minded partisans of himself and his Tory 
'ministry. Tiie members of his cabinet and council were for the most part men as incoin- 
.^tent and illiberal as their king. With such a ruler and such a ininistry.it was not likely 
that the descendants of the Pilgrims in America wo'i'd get on smoothly. 

The more immediate cause of the Revolution, however, was the passage by Parliament 
of a series of act.3 destructive of colonial liberty. These acts were first opposed and then 
rcsistetl by the colonies, and the attempt wxs made by Great Britain to enforce them, first 
with authority and then with the bayonet. The general question involved in these acts was 
that of taxation. It is a well-grounded principle of the English common law that the 



EPOCH OF INDEPENDENCE. 



i8i 



rjbjects of the crown by their representatives in the House of Commons have the right 
of voting whatever taxes and customs are necessary, for the support of the kingdom. It was 
but natural that this right should be claimed by the American colonists ; for they were 
English subjects with the full rights of Englishmen. 

With good reason the General Assemblies of the colonies urged that they, the AssenK 
blies, held, out of the nature of the case, the same relation to the American people as th& 

House of Commons 
held to the people of 
England. To this pro- 
position the English 
ministers replied that 
Parliament, and not the 
colonial Assemblies, was 
the proper body to vote 
taxes in any and all 
parts of the British em- 
pire. "But we are not 
represented in Parlia- 
ment," was the answer 
of the Americans ; " the 
House of Commons may 
therefore justly assess 
taxes in England, but 
not in America." 
" Many of the towns, 
boroughs and shires in 
these British isles have 
no representatives in 
Parliament, and yet the 
Parliament taxes them^''^ 
replied the ministers, 
now driven to sophistry. 
"If any of your towns, 
boroughs and shires are 
not represented in the 
House of Commons, 
they ought to be," was 
the American rejoinder, 
and there the argument 
ended. It is easy for the reader to discover in this incipient controversy the elements of a 
profound dispute relative to the rights of local self-government and home-rule — a dispute 
which has not yet ceased to agitate and disturb the British empire. 

SPECIFIC COMPLAINTS AGAINST ENGLAND. 

Such were, the essentials of the controversy between the colonies and the mothej 

country. It is now proper to notice the principal parliamentary acts which the colonists 

complained of and resisted. The first of these was called the Importation Act. It was 

passed in the year 1733- The statute "'as itself a kind of supplement and revival of the 




^.Z-i 



''ify. 




'€V?ncd<^<J/l^?\ 



lO 



y^cf^Qmd' (ozJ^^i^n-^jz. 



182 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

old Navigation Act of 165 1. By the tenns of the new law exorbitant duties were laid on 
all the sugar, molasses and rum imported into the colonies. The effect was, as a matter of 
course, to raise the price of tliese articles to the consumers, with the consequent discontent 
and distress which such measures always produce. At first the payment of the unreason- 
able customs was evaded by the merchants, and then the statute was openly set at naught, 
di.sobeyed and neglected as though it were not. In 1750 an act was passed forbidding the 
erection of iron works in America. The manufacture of steel was specially interdicted, 
-and the felling of pines outside of law was made a misdemeanor under penalty. 

All of these laws were at length disregarded, as they were from the first denounced b> 
tlie people of the colonies as being unjust and tyrannical. In 1761 the question of these 
'violated statutes was taken up and a strenuous effort was made to enforce the Importatior 
.A.CL Tiie colonial courts in America were directed to issue to the King's officers a kinc 
•of search-warrants called writs of assistance. With these in hand it was possible for pett> 
constables to enter any and even,- place, searching for and seizing goods which were suspectec 
of having evaded the duty. It was but natural that this proceeding should be resisted 
At Salem and Boston the greatest excitement prevailed. The question of resistance wa^ 
carried to the courts, and James Otis, an able and temperate man, pleaded eloquently fo: 
the right of the colonies, denouncing the parliamentary acts as contrary to the British con 
stitution. Tlie address of Otis was accepted as a masterly defence of the people, and the 
event produced a profound feeling throughout the colonies. Already there began to bt 
hints of resistance by force of arms. 

Two years after these events the English ministers again took up the question of en 
forcing the law which required the payment of duties on sugar, molasses and rum. Tht 
officers of the admiralty were directed to seize and confiscate all vessels engaged in tht 
transportation of these articles except under certificate that the duties thereon had beet 
paid. While this act was pending in Parliament and before a knowledge of its passagt 
had reached Boston a great town-meeting was held in that city. The orator of the day was 
the patriot Samuel Adams. He produced a powerful argiiment, showing conclusively thai 
nnder the British constitution taxation and representation are inseparable. Meanwhile ves- 
sels from the English navy, under direction of the admiralty, were sent to hover around tht 
American harbors and enforce the provisions of the Importation Act. By these a great num 
ber of merchantmen bearing cargoes of sugar and spirits were seized, in so much that tlu 
colonial trade with the West Indies was almost destroyed. 

These events occupied public attention during the years 1763-64. In the latter yeaj 
was made in Parliament the first formal declaration of a purpose to tax the colonies. Sii 
George Grenville was at this time Prime Minister of England. By his influence on the 
loth of March, 1764, a resolution was adopted in the House of Commons declaring that it 
would be proper to charge certain stamp duties on the American colonies. It was an- 
nounced that a bill embodying this principle would be prepared by the ministers ani 
Wought forward at the next session of Parliament. 

EXCITEMENT PRODUCED BY THE STAMP ACT. 
The news of this measure was lo the Americans like a spark in a magazine of com- 
bustibles. Universal excitement and indignation prevailed throughout the colonies. Politi- 
cal meetings became the order of the day. Orators were in great demand. The newspapers 
teemed with argmnents against the proposed enactment. Resolutions were pa.ssed in opposi- 
tion at almost even,' town-meeting. Fonnal remonstrances were drawn up and forwarded 
to the King and Parliament. Some of the ablest men of the colonies were appointed agents 
Bod sent to London in the hope of preventing the passage of such a law. 



EPOCH OF INDEPENDENCE. 



183 



The reader may be curious to know by what argument a British Commoner of 1764 
would defend the provisions of the Stamp Act. It was thus : The French and Indian 
war had just been concluded with a treaty of peace. Great Britain had been at large ex- 
pense and had incurred heavy debt. The war had been fought for the English colonies in 
America, in their defence against the French, for the extension of their territorial domains 
beyond the mountains. It would be just and right that the expense of the war should be 
borne by the colonies. The debt incurred might be properly and equitably provided for by 
levying stamp duties on the business of the colonists. 

To all this the Americans replied that England ought to defend her colonies for the 
reason that they were hers and for motives of humanity; that in the prosecution of the late 
war the colonies had aided Great Britain as much as she had aided them; that the American 
provincials had devoted their treasure and shed their blood in that cause which was to secure 
the supremacy of the British crown in the vast region east of the Mississippi; that the re- 
cent cession of Canada had amply compensated 
England for her losses in the war; and finally 
that it was not the payment of money which 
the colonists dreaded, but the loss of their 
liberties. It was a principle for which they 
contended — the principle of representa- 
tion and tax. The Americans were not re- 
presented in Parliament, and Parliament there- 
fore should not tax them either directly or in- 
directly. To all this was added with some 
acerbity that in case of another war the 
Americans would fight their own battle. In 
the light of the retrospect and the impartial 
judgment of history it is easy to see that the 
American argument had in it a force, a cogency, 
an element of truth and justice for which we 
should look in vain in the reasonings of the 
British ministry. 

At the beginning of the controversy in the 
British Parliament, the cause of the Ameri- 
cans was defended by the celebrated William 
Pitt, afterwards Earl of Chatham. But with 
the coming of 1765 that statesman had been obliged to yield his place in the House of 
Commons, and with that event the Stamp Act was passed. In the Lower House the 
measure was adopted by a majority of five to one. In the House of Lords the vote was 
unanimous. At the time of the passage, the King was in a fit of insanity, and was unable 
\o sign the bill. On the 2 2d of March the royal assent was given by a board of commis- 
sioners acting in the King's name. "The sun of American liberty has set," wrote Benjamin 
Franklin to a friend at home. " Now we must light the lamp of industry and economy." 
"Be assured," said the friend in reply, "that we shall light torches of another sort T* 
And the answer reflected the sentiment and detennination of the whole country. 

The leading provisions of the Stamp Act were as follows : Every note, bond, deed, 
mortgage, lease, license and legal document of whatever sort required in the colonies should, 
after the ist day of November, 1765, be executed on paper bearing an English stamps 




BENJ. FR.\NKI.IN. 



1 84 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 




This stamped paper was to be furnished by the British government, and for each sheet the 
colonists were required to pay a sura varying, according to the nature of the document to 
be written or printed thereon, from three-pence to six pounds sterling. Every colonial 
pamphlet, almanac and newspaper was required to be printed on the stamped paper, the 
value of the stamps in this case ranging from a half-penny to four-pence ; every advertise- 
ment was taxed two shillings. No contract was to be of any binding force unless written 
on paper bearing the royal stamp. 

THE TORCH OF REBELLION LIGHTED. 

It was not likely that an act such as this would be received in other than a wrathful 
spirit by the already goaded American colonists. The news of the passage of the aci swept 
over the country- like a thunder-cloud. The weaker of the people gave way to grief ; but 
the stronger, the more courageous, 
were indignant, angr>', defiant. 
Crowds of excited men surged into 
the towns and there were some acts 
of violence. In Philadelphia and 
Boston the bells rung a funeral peal 
and the people called it the death- 
knell of liberty. At New York 
there was a procession ; a copy of 
the Stamp Act was carried through 
the streets with a death's-head nailed 
to it and a placard bearing this in- 
scription — "The folly of England 
and the ruin of America." 

The orators added fuel to tli<j 
flame. In the Virginia House of 
Burgesses there was a memorable 
scene. Patrick Hcim', the youngest 
member of the House, an un- 
etlucated mountaineer from Louisa 
county, waited for some older 
delegate to lead the Burgesses in 
opposition to Parliament. But the 
older members were of that con- 
servative folk with whom ease and 
estates and possessions have tri- 

nniphcd over the hazards of freedom and aggression. Some of these hesitated ; others 
went home. 

OITcndcd at this lukewannness, Henr>' in his passionate way snatched a blank leaf out 
of an old law-book and hastily drew up a series of fier>- resolutions declaring that the 
Virginians were Englishmen with English rights ; that the people of Great Britain had the 
exclusive pnvilege of voting their own taxes and so had the Americans ; that the colonists 
were not bound to yield obedience to any law imposing taxation on them ; and that who- 
ever said the contrary' was an enemy to the conntrv. The resolutions were at once laid 
before the House. 

It was the signal for excitement and tumult. A violent debate ensued, in which the 







PROCESSION IN NEW YORK IN OPPOSITION TO THE STAMP ACT. 



EPOCH OF INDEPENDENCE. 



185 



patriots had the best of the argument. It was a moment of intense interest. The legisla- 
tive assembly of the oldest and most populous of all the colonies was about to act. Two 
future Presidents of the United States were in the audience ; Washington occupied his seat 
as a delegate and Thomas Jefferson, fresh from college, stood just outside the railing. The 
eloquent and audacious Henry bore down all opposition. " Tarquin and Caesar had each, 

his Brutus, ' ' said the in- 
dignant orator; "Charles- 
I. had his Cromwell, and 
George II I." — 
"Treason!" shouted 
the Speaker. ' ' Trea- 
son, treason ! " cried the 
terrified loyalists, 
springing to their feet.. 
—"And George III. 
may profit by their ex- 
ample," continued 
Henry ; and then added 
as he took his seat, ' ' If 
that be treason, make- 
the most of it !" The 
resolutions were put to 
the House and adopted ; 
but the majorities on 
some of the votes were 
small, and the next day when Henry was absent the most 
violent paragraph was reconsidered and expunged ; some 
of the members were greatly frightened at their own 
audacity. But the resolutions in their entire form had gone before the country as the ex- 
pression of the oldest American commonwealth and the effect on the other colonies was as- 
the shock of a battery. 

ASSEMBLING OF THE FIRST COLONIAL CONGRESS. 
Other Assemblies proceeded in a similar strain. Resolutions like those of the Virginia 
House were adopted in New York and Massachusetts — in the Assembly of the latter State 
before the action of Virginia was known. At Boston James Otis proposed the holding of 
an American Congress. His plan was to the effect that each colony, without leave of the 
King, should appoint delegates to meet in the following autumn and discuss the affairs of 
the nation. The proposition was received with much favor. Nine of the colonies appointed 
delegates and on the 7th of October, 1765, the First Colonial Congress assembled at New 
York. I 

Twenty-eight representatives were present at the session of this memorable body. 
Timothy Ruggles, of Massachusetts, was chosen president. After much discussion a Decla- 
ration of Rights was adopted setting forth in moderate but unmistakable terms that the 
American colonists, . as Englishmen, could not and would not consent to be taxed save by 
their own representatives. Memorials were also prepared and addressed to the two Houses 
of Parliament. A manly petition declaring loyalty and praying for a just and humane- 
policy toward his American subjects was drawn up and directed to the King. 




i86 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

The Stamp Act was to have gone into effect on the ist of November. The British 
government went straight ahead with the preliminaries fully expecting the American colo- 
nies to accept the measure. During the summer great quantities of the stamped paper were 
prepared and sent to America. Everywhere it was rejected or destroyed. The ist of 
November instead of marking the beginning of a new era of British revenue in the colonies 
was observed as a day of mourning. At first legal business was su.spended. The court 
houses and otlier public offices were shut up. Not even a marriage licens'; could be legally 
issued and tlie affianced of the young men and women put off the consummation of tlieii 
unions. 

By and by, however, the offices began to be opened and business was resumed, but it 
was 7iot transacted with stamped paper. The antagonism against the act had now pene- 
trated to the secret depths of society. It was at this time that the patriotic order known as 
the Sons of Liberty was organized under an oath of secrecy and with the one profound pur- 
pose of resisting the arbitrary acts and tyranny of the British ministry. The patriot mer- 
chants at New York, Boston and Philadelphia took up the cause and entered into an asree- 
ment to purchase no more goods of Great Britain until the Stamp Act should be repealed. 

Meanwhile the ministry had to meet the rising tide of an indignant opposition in Eng- 
land as well as America. It was found that the American colonists were not without theii 
friends. Some of the most eminent British statesmen espoused their cause. In the House 
of Commons William Pitt planted himself squarely in the pathway of the government. On 
one occasion he delivered a powerful address on the relations of the mother country to the 
colonies. "You have," said he, " no right to tax America. I rejoice that America has 
resisted!" The opposition prevailed and on the iSth of March, 1766, the Stamp Act was 
formally repealed. At the same time, however, and as a sort of salve to the Parliamentan.' 
honor it was declared by resolution that Parliament had the right " to bind the colonies in 
all cases whatsoever." 

IMPOSITION OF OPPRESSIVE DUTIES. 

Great was the joy in both England and America when the news of the repeal of the 
Stamp Act was borne abroad. The reversal in British policy was so complete as to effect a 
change in the ministry. Earl Grenville was obliged to retire from the place of Prime Minis- 
ter and the leadership of the cabinet was given to William Pitt, Earl of Chatham. That 
statesman, however, was already fallen into the decrepitude which preceded his death. In 
die ver)' crisis of affairs he was confined by sickness to his country' home. In accordanc* 
with usage Charles Townshend, a member of the cabinet, acted in the place of the Pnme 
Minister, and while holding that position for a brief period brought forward with strange 
fatuity a new scheme for taxing America. On the 29th of June, i"*^?, a system of American 
customs-duties was devised and an act passed imposing an import :aiiff on all the glass, 
paper, painters' colors and tea which should thereafter be shipped to American harbors. 

With the passage of this act the slumbering resentment of the colonists burst out anew. 
A second agreement was made by the American merchants not to purchase British goods 
until tlie objectionable acts should be repealed. The colonial newspapers were filled with 
denunciations of Parliament. The question was again taken up by the patriots in the vari- 
ous legislatures. Early in 1768 the A:>.embly of Massachusetts prepared a circular and sent 
it abroad calling upon the other colonies for assistance in the effort to obtain redress of 
grievances. This paper had the effect of enraging the British ministers and they required 
tlie Assembly to rescind their action and to express regret for that "rash and hasty 
proceeding." 



t> 



EPOCH OF INDEPENDENCE. 187 

The merchantmen trading with the colonies caught their spirit In many instances 
they chose to violate the customs act and dutiable goods were thus brought in free. In June 
of 1768 a sloop charged with evading the payment of duty was seized by the custom house 
officers at Boston. This done, a tumult broke out The people became insurgent, attacked 
the houses of the officers and obliged the occupants to save themselves by flight to Castle 
William, on an island in the harbor. Affairs soon came to so high a pass as to betoken 
revolution. General Gage, commandant of a regiment of British regulars at Halifax, was 
accordingly ordered to repair to Boston and overawe the insurgents. He arrived at that 
city on the ist of October bringing with him seven hundred soldiers. With these he 
marched into the capital of Massachusetts after the manner of a conqueror. 

The excitement in Parliament rose to an equal height. In February of 1769 thai 
body passed an act declaring the people of Massachusetts to be rebels and directing the 
governor to arrest such as might be deemed guilty and send them to England for trial 1 
This act was fuel to the flame. The General Assembly of Massachusetts met the outrage 
with defiant resolutions. Similar measures were taken by the Assemblies in Virginia and 
North Carolina. In the latter State there was a popular insurrection, but Governor Tryon 
succeeded in suppressing it The insurgents being outlawed escaped across the mountaina 
to become the founders of Tennessee. 

THE BOSTON MASSACRE. 

Already in the principal American cities the peace was broken between the British 
soldiery and the people. The former constituted a kind of garrisons, with no respect indeed 
to a foreign foe, but having the manifest purpose of suppressing the inhabitants among 
whom they were quartered. In 1770 the British soldiers in New York cut down a liberty- 
pole which had been erected in the Park. Hereupon a conflict ensued in which the people, 
were victorious. In Boston a more serious difficulty occurred. In tliat city, on the 5tli of 
March, a crowd of people, rough but patriotic, surrounded Captain Preston's company 
of the city guard, addressed them with epithets, hooted at them and dared them to fire. 
At length the soldiers becoming angry took the challenge, discharged a volley and killed 
three of the citizens, wounding several others. This riot of blood and lawlessness became 
known as the Boston massacre. The event created a profound sensation. Captain Preston 
and his company were arrested and tried for murder, and two of the offenders were con- 
victed of manslaughter. 

By this time it had become apparent even in England that a different policy must be 
adopted with the American colonies. The method of conciliation was now attempted, and 
Parliament passed an act repealing all duties on American imports except that on tea. The 
people in answer pledged themselves to use no more tea until the duty should be uncon- 
ditionally repealed. In 1772 an act was passed making the salaries of the King's officers 
in Massachusetts payable out of the treasury without consent of the Assembly. This 
measure was resisted as the others before it had been. About the same time the Gaspee, a 
royal schooner anchored at Providence, was boarded by the patriots of that city and burned. 

A VIOLENT RESENTMENT OF THE TAX ON TEA. 

In the following year Parliament, acting after the manner of a petulant boy having 
the wrong side of a quarrel, and abandoning his fonner untenable position as if by stages 
of apology and reparation, passed an act removing the export duty which had hitherto 
been charged on tea shipped yro;« England. The price was by so much lowered, and the 
ministers flattered themselves with the belief that when the cheaper tea was offered in the 
\raerican market the colonists would pay the import duty without suspicion. Ships were 



1 88 



PEOPLPrS HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



accordingly loaded with tea for America. Some of the vessels reached Charlestown ; but the 
tea chests being refused by the merchants were stored in cellars and the contents ruined. 
At New York and Philadelphia the sliips were forbidden to enter the docks. At Boston 
the authorities would not permit the tea to be landed. 

Now it was that one of the striking incidents precursive of the coming war occurred 
at the capital of Massachusetts. On the i6th of December, 1773, there was a great town- 
meeting, at which about seven thousand people were present Samuel Adams aud Josiah 
Quincy spoke to the multitude. Evening 
came on, and the meeting was about to 
adjourn when a war whoop was heard, and 
fifty men disguised as Indians marched to 
tlie wharf where the tea-chests ships were at 
anchor. The masqueraded men quickly 
boarded tlie vessels and emptied three hundred 
and forty chests of tea into the bay. Such 
was the Boston Tea Party! In the language 
of Carlyle, "Boston harbor was black with 
unexpected tea !' ' 

Great was the wrath produced by the 
intelligence of this event in Great Britain. 
Parliament made haste to find revenge. On 
the 31st of March, 1774, the Boston Port Bill 
was passed, by which it was enacted that no 
kind of merchandise should any longer be 
landed or shipped at the wharves of Boston. 
The custom-house was removed to Salem ; 
but the people of that town refused to accept 
it ! What must have been the temper and 
sentiment of a town which refused to accept 
a custom-house as a free gift from the mother countr>' ? The inhabitants of Marblehcai 
gave tlie free use of their warehouses to the merchants of Boston. 

When the news of the passage of the Port Bill reached Virginia the burgesses 
promptly entered a protest on their journal. Hereupon Governor Dunmore ordered the 
members to their homes ; but they adjourned only to meet in another place and continue 
their work. On the 20th of May a climax was reached in Parliament by the passage of 
an act revoking and annulling the charter of Massachusetts. The people of that province 
were declared rebels, and the governor was ordered to send abroad for trial all persons who 
should resist the royal officers. 

Now it was, namely, in September of 1774, that the Second Colonial Congress assem- 
bled at Philadelphia. Eleven colonies were represented. One address was prepared and 
sent to tiie King, a second to the English nation and a third to the people of Canada. A 
resolution was adopted to suspend all commercial intercourse with Great Britain ! When 
information of this daring measure reached England Parliament retaliated by ordering 
General Gage to reduce the colonists by force. A fleet and ten thousand soldiers were sent 
to aid him in the work of subjugation. Boston Neck was seized and fortified by the Britislu 
The military stores at Cambridge and Charlestown were conveyed to Boston and the General 
Assembly was ordered to disband. The members, however, instead of dispersing, voted to 
raise and equip an army of twelve thousand men for defence. 




.SAMUEL ADAMS. 




CHAPTER XIII. 
FROM CONCORD TO QUEBEC. 

ROM the first the people of Boston were on one side and 
General Gage and his army on the other. There was 
hardly a middle ground of conservatism between them. 
As soon as the British occupancy was effected, the Bos- 
tonians, concealing their ammunition in carts, conveyed 
it out of the city to the village of Concord, about sixteen 
miles away. The possession of these military stores was 
of the greatest importance to the colony, and their recap- 
ture of like importance to the British commander. On 
the night on the i8th of April he accordingly despatched 
a regiment of eight hundred men to recapture or destroy 
the stores which the patriots had collected at Concord. 
The plan of the British was made with great secrecy, but 
the provincials discovered the movement, and when the 
regiment, under command of Colonel Smith and Major 
Pitcaim, set out for Concord, the people of Boston were roused by the ringing of bell'^ and 
the firing of cannon. Two messengers, William Dawes and Paul Revere, rode with all 
speed to Lexington and spread the alarm through the countr}'. 

At two o'clock in the moniing of the 19th of April a company of a hundred and 
thirty minute-men gathered on the common at Lexington. They came with arms to resist 
the approaching enemy. But no enemy appeared until about five o'clock, when the British 
advance under Pitcaim, came into sight. The provincials were led by Captain Parker. 
Pitcairn rode up and exclaimed : " Disperse, ye villains! Throw down your arms!" Tne 
minute-men stood still, and Pitcairn cried "Fire!" The first volley of the Revolution 
whistled through the air and sixteen of the patriots fell dead or wounded. The rest fired 

a few random shots and dispersed. 

BATTLE OF CONCORD. 

After this passage at arms the British passed oti without further molestation to Concord. 
But the inhabitants had removed the stores to a place of safety and there was but little left 
for destruction. While the British were ransacking the town the minute-men gathered and 
confronted a company of soldiers who were guarding the North Bridge. Here the Ameri- 
cans first fired imder orders of their officers and two British soldiers were killed. The 
volley was hotter than the enemy had expected, and the company, abandoning the bridge, 
began a retreat through the town and thence in the direction of Lexington. 

This movement was the signal for the patriots to rally. They came flocking from all 
directions. They rose on every side as if from the earth. For six miles they kept up the 
battle along the road. They hid behind trees, fences and barns and poured a constant fire 
upon the retreating British. At one time it seemed that the whole regiment would be 
obliged to surrender. As it was, the enemy lost two hundred and seventy-three men, 
while the American loss was forty-nine killed, thirty-four wounded and fi's^e missing. 

(1S9) 



IQO 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



Great was the fame of the battle. 
md sped awnv tlironc^li n!! the colonies. 




lAlI. Ki:VKRK SPREADINC THK ALARM. 



Rumor took the news thereof upon her wings 
Not even tlie Allcwlianies stayed the intelligence 

util it had reached the 
remotest English cabins 
in the Ohio Valley, 
Kentucky and Tennes- 
see. The country was 
fired with the passion 
r war. Men armed 
ihemselves of their own 
iccord and within a 
w days an army of 
•enty thousand patriot 
' ildiers gathered about 
lioston. A line of en- 
trenchments was drawn 
around the city from 

Ro.xbury to Chelsea. It was the common talk of the tumultuous host that they 

would soon drive Gage and his red-coats into the sea. Captain John Stark came down 

with the militia of New Hampshire. Old Israel Putnam, with his leather waistcoat on, 

hurried to the nearest town, mounted a horse and rode to Cambridge, a distance of a 

hundred miles in eighteen hours! Rhode 

Island sent her men under Colonel Nathaniel 

Greene, and Benedict Arnold came with the 

provincials of New Haven. 

CAPTURE OF TICONDEROGA. 
Ethan Allen, of Vermuut, made war in 

the other direction. With a conipany of 

two hundred and seventy patriots from the 

Green Mountains he advanced against Ticon- 

deroga. Arnold joined the expedition as a 

private. On the evening of the 9th of May, 

the force reached the shore of Lake George 

opposite the fort. On the following morn- 
ing eighty-three men succeeded in crossing. 

With this mere handful Allen made a dash 

and gained the gateway of the fort The 

sentinel was driven in closely followed by the 

patriot mountaineers. The audacious captain 

nished to tlie quarters of the connnandant and 

cried out, "Surrender this fort instantly!" 

"By what authority?" inquired the officer. 

"In the name of the great Jehovah and the 

Continentil Congress," said Allen, flourishing his sword.* There was no alternative. 

• The bravado of Ethan Allen and his answer have ever been precious morsels in Revolutionary tradition. 
His conduct ami words were as humorous as they were emphatic. His citation of authority was a ludicro«» 
•nachrouism, for the capture of the fort was made about five hours before the Continental Congress convened. 




^« 



GEN. NATHANIEL GREENE. 



EPOCH OF INDEPENDENCE. 



191 




ETHAN AI.T,EN DEMANDING THB StJRRE..rr:'' OF TICONDEROGA- 



So thought the officer, and he surrendered at discretion. The garrison were made prisonen 
and sent to Connecticut By this daring exploit vast quantities of military stores fell into 
the hands of the Americans, f Two days afterward Crown Point was taken and the 
British authority ended on the shores of Lake George. 

Great Britain after her manner rose to the emergency. She had now made the 
issue and must meet it An army of reinforcements under Generals Howe, Clinton and 
Burgoyne reached Bos- 
ton on the 25th of 
May. The British 
forces were thus aug- 
mented to more than 
ten thousand men. 
Rumors now flev, 
abroad that General 
Gage was about to 
begin a campaign from 
Boston into the country 
for the purpose of 
burning the neighbor- 
ing towns and laying 
waste the region round 
about Belief in the 
truth of this rumor 
produced great activity 

among the Americans, and they determined to anticipate the movement of the enemy by 
seizing and fortifying Bunker Hill which commanded the Peninsula of Charlestown. 

It was now midsummer of 1775. On the night of the i6th of June Colonel William 
Prescott was sent forward from Cambridge with about twelve hundred 
men to occupy and entrench the hill. The provincials passed over the 
Neck in safety and reached the eminence known as Bunker Hill; but 
Prescott and his engineer, Gridley, not liking the position, proceeded down 
the peninsula to the place called Breed's Pasture, afterwards named 
Breed's Hill, within cannon range of Boston. On this height a redoubt 
was thrown up during the night. The British ships in the harbor were 
so near at hand that the American pickets along the shore could heai 
the sentinels of the enemy repeating the night call, "All is well! " 

With the coming of morning General Gage, perceiving the 
extraordinary thing which patriotism had accomplished during the 
night, ordered the ships in the harbor to begin the cannonade of the 
American position. The British batteries on Copp's Hill, which is the 
eminence in Boston over against Breed's Hill also opened fire. Just aftei 
noon three thousand British veterans commanded by Generals Howe and Pigot landed aX 
Morton's point on Charlestown peninsula and prepared to carry the American redoubt. 

T One of the marvellous things in Bancroft is the following : "Thus Ticonderoga, which had cost the British 
nation eight millions sterling, a succession of campaigns and many lives, was won in ten minutes by a few undis- 
dptned volunteers without the loss of life or limb."— Bancroft's History of the United States, Vol. vii., p. 340. 
The historian here gives as the cost of Ticonderoga a sum more than ten times greater than it would require tC 
rebuild Fortress Monroe ! 




VICTOTTY OF LAKE 
GEORGE. 



192 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



The entire force of the provincials now ready for action was fewer tlian fifteen hun- 
dred men. Generals Putnam and Warren had both arrived at the redoubt, but each 
refused to take the command from Colonel Prescott and both ser\'ed as privates in the 
trenches. During the British advance Charlestown was set on fire and soon reduced 
to ashes. Thousands of spectators climbed to the housetops in Boston to watch the battle. 
On came the British in a stately and imposiuij column. 
' BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. 

The Americans, as directed by their officers, reser\'ed their fire until the advancing line 
of the enemy was within a hundred and fifty feet. Then from the breastworks suddenly 
there burst a sheet of flame, and the front ranks of the British withered in the blast. After 
a few volleys of this deadly fire the rest of the enemy fell into retreat. Once out of range 
of the patriot muskets, Howe rallied his men and led them to the second charge. Again 
the Americans withheld their fire until the enemy was but a few rods from the works, and 
then with steadv aim the deadly work of the first charge was repeated. The provincials 

took steady aim and volley after volley was poured upon 
the British cohunu until it was broken and driven into 
flight. 

Before the second repulse the ships of the enemy's fleet 
changed position so as to get the range of the American 
redoubt and that position became almost untenable. For 
the third time the British soldiers were refonned and sent 
forward up the hillside with fi.xed bayonets. Unfortunately 
for the patriots they had been but poorly supplied with 
ammunition. They were also exhausted with the battle, 
and with the indiscretion of raw troops, had eaten up theii 
rations early in the day. The provincials had but three 01 
four rounds of powder and balls remaining. These they 
expended on the advancing enemy and then there was a lull. The British reached the 
ramparts and clambered over. The Americans, now out of ammunition, clubbed their 
ginis and hurled stones at the assailants. There was a brief hand-to-hand conflict. But 
tlie courage of the defenders was in vain and they were driven out of the works at the 
point of the bayonet. 

One of the last to lca\'e the trenches was the heroic Warren, who was struck with a 
British ball, and gave his life for freedom. The losses on both sides had been oi;t of all 
proportion to the numbers engaged. That of the British was a thousand and fifty-four in 
killed and wounded, while the Americans lost a hundred and fifteen killed, three hundred 
and five wounded and thirty-two prisoners. . More than a third on each side had been put 
iwrs du combat in the stniggle on the summit of Breed's Hill. The Americans fell back 
over Bunker Hill, and were led in retreat by Prescott and Putnam, first to Prospect Hill 
and then across Charlestown Neck to Cambridge. 

Thus was the war of the Revolution precipitated by a bloody battle. To the patriots 
the conflict on Bunker Hill was a circumstance of inspiration rather than discouragement 
There was no longer any doubt that provincial militiamen, ununifonned and undisciplined, 
each with his own hunting-shirt and powder-horn and rifle, would stand against the veteran 
columns of Great Britain. This was much. The news of the battle was borne swiftly 
through the colonies as far as Georgia and the spirit of determined opposition was every- 




PLAN OF THE IlATTLIi OV BUNKER 
HILL. 



EPOCH OF INDEPENDENCE. 



193 



where aroused. The people began to speak of the United Colonies of America. They 
talked openly of independence as a possible consequence of the war. At Charlotte, in 
the Mecklenburg district of North Carolina, the citizens ran together in a convention and 
actually passed a resolution and preamble declaring Independence. 

WASHINGTON APPOINTED TO COMMAND THE AMERICAN ARMY. 

Meanwhile, on the same day as the capture of Ticonderoga, the Colonial Congress con- 

<rened at Philadelphia. It was a noted assembly. Washington v/as there and John Adams 

and Samuel Adams, Franklin and Patrick Henry ; Jefferson came soon afterwards. It was 

a meeting of heroes and patriots. A last appeal was drawn up and i,ent to the King, 

telling that monarch that 
the American colonists, 
driven by exaction and 
injustice, had chosen war 
in preference to slavery-. 

Early in the session 
John Adams made an 
address in the course of 
which he referred to the 
necessity of appointing a 
commander-in-chief for the 
American anny, and noted 
the qualities requisite in 
that high officer. The 
speaker concluded by put- 
ting in nomination George 
Washington, of Virginia. 
On the mention of his 




name 



Washington arose 



and withdrew from the hall, saying to a friend outside, 
"I fear that this day will mark the beginning of the 
downfall of my military reputation." On the 15th of 
June, two days before the battle of Bunker Hill, the 
nomination was confirmed by Congress, and the man 
who had saved the wreck of Braddock's anny was 
called upon to stand between the colonies as a whole 
and the wrath of the mother country, and to save, possibly to build, a nation. 

Washington was at the time of his election as commander-in-chief a little more than 
forty-three years of age. His reputation was already that of a hero, patriot and statesman. 
He was out of Virginia — bom in Westmoreland county, on the nth of February (old style), 
1732. At the age of eleven he had been left to the sole care of his mother. His education 
was limited to the common branches of learning ; he was not a collegian. Surveying was 
his favorite study. At the early age of sixteen he had been sent by his uncle to survey a 
tract of land in the valley of the South Potomac. His first public duties performed in 
the service of the Ohio Company, under direction of Governor Dinwiddle, and in the disas- 
trous campaign of Braddock, have already been narrated. With great dignity and diffi- 
dence he accepted the appointment of commander-in-chief, and set out to join the army at 
Cambrido-e. Henceforth to the end of the war the destinies of the American cause were in 

o 

the largest measure entrusted to his keeping, 
13 



194 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



At the ver>' beginning of the session Congress voted to equip an anny of twenty thou- 
sand meu, but the means of doing so were not furnished. Here, for tlie first time, we uote 
the essential vice of that confederative plan of government with which the history of the 
American people as a nation begins. The raising of revenue, the furnishing of supplies, 
tlie nayment of levies, and all things included in this important branch of administration, 
were left to the individual States. Congress, under the existing compact, had no right to 
collect revenues or gather the supplies requisite for the prosecution of the war. Through* 

eut the revolutionar)' struggle both Congress and the general of the armies were constantly 
ampered and impeded by this fatal defect in that system of administration which went by 
the name of government, but was in reality no government at all. 

ORGANIZATION OF THE AMERICAN ARMY. 
On taking command of the anny at Cambridge Washington found himself at the head 
•f a force of fourteen thousand five hundred volunteers ; but tliey were undisciplined and 

insubordinate. Worse than this, they did 
not for the most part desire to be disciplined 
cr to become subordinate. The spirit of 
individuality and localism was rampant 
The supplies of war were almost wholly 
wanting. But the anny was soon organized 
and arranged in three divisions. The right 
wing was assigned to General Artemas 
Ward and stationed at Roxburj-. The left 
was put under command of General Charles 
Lee and given position at Prospect HilL 
The centre under the commander-in-chief 
lay at Cambridge. After Bunker Kill the 
British held possession of Boston, including 
the Charlestown peninsula; but the patriots 
yielded no inch of their ground, and soon 
returned to the siege of the city. The in- 
vestment was made with vigor and deter- 
mination, and the British generals soon 
found themselves cooped up with no pros- 
pect of free campaigns or success in the 
open field. 

The King's authority was ver>' soon overthrown in all the colonies. In most of them 
there was little '•csistance to the popular movement In Virginia the governor, Lord Dun- 
more, after being driven from office, proclaimed freedom to the slaves, and raised a force 
•f loyalists and inaugurated civil war ; but he was soon defeated by the patriots in an 
engagement near Norfolk. By the autumn of 1775 the royal officers were all expelled, 
and popular governments on the republican plan instituted in every one of the thirteen 
colonics. 

It was expected by the Americans that Canada would make connnon cause with the 
rest, but this expectation was doomed to disappointment. In the hope of encouraging the 
people of that province to renounce the mother country and take up anns, Generals 
Schuyler and Montgomery were ordered to proceed against St. John's and Montreal. The 
former fort was reached on the loth of September, and General Montgomery succeeded at 




GF.ORGIi WASHINGTON. 



EPOCH OF INDEPENDENCE. 



IQ: 



length in capturing it from the British garrison. Montreal was invested shortly afterwards, 
and on the 13th of November was obliged to capitulate. General Montgomery in the next 
place marched with three hundred men against Quebec. In the meantime Colonel Benedict 
Arnold had set out for the same destination with a thousand men drawn from the army at 
Cambridge. After a march of untold hardship and suffering that daring commander 
reached the St. Lawrence and climbed to the Plains of Abraham above Quebec. At Point 
aux Tremples he was joined by Montgomery, who as the senior officer took command. 
The whole force fit for effective duty did not now exceed nine hundred men, so greatly had 
they suffered. Quebec, in addi- 



tion to being a place of great 
natural and artificial strength, 
was defended by greatly superior 
numbers. Yet for three weeks 
with his mere handful of troops 
Montgomery besieged the town, 
and finally staked everything on 
the issue of an assault. 

ASSAULT ON QUEBEC. 

Before daybreak of the 31st 
of December, 1775, the first 
division of the Americans, led 
by Montgomery in person, at- 
tacked the Lower Town. The 
second column, under Arnold, 
attempted to stonn the Prescott 
g:ate. As Montgomery's men 
were rushing forward a masked 
battery before them burst forth 
with a stonn of grapeshot, and 
at the first discharge Mont- 
gomery fell dead. The men, 
heartbroken at the loss of their 
leader, letreated and made their 




. THE ATTACK ON QUEBEC AND DEATH OF MONTGOMERY. 



way to Wolfe's Cove, above the city. 

Arnold had meanwhile, by extraordinary daring, fought his way into the Lowt^r Town; 
but while leading a charge he was severely wounded and borne to the rear. Captain 
Morgan assumed command, and not knowing the fate of Montgomery pressed on through 
the narrow streets until he was overwhelmed and compelled to surrender. Arnold with the 
remnant of his forces retired to a point three miles above the city. The small-pox broke 
out in the camp ; Quebec was strengthened ; and in the following June the Americana 
evacuated Canada. The event fixed the destiny of the northern province. The Canadians 
remained in allegiance to the British crown, and Canada was used as a base of operatioos 
by the British in the further prosecution of the war. , 




CHAPTER XIV. 

THE YEAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

CAME the King's answer to the appeal of Congress. The 
petitions of the colonies were rejected with contempt 
George III. and his minister planted themselves in a posi- 
tion from which there was no retreat The issue was 
made up. Subjugation was the method deliberately 
adopted by the British Government with respect to the 
American colonies. By this policy and by the tyrannical 
answer of the King the day of Independence was brought 
near, even to the door. 

After Bunker Hill, General Howe succeeded Gage in 
the connnand of the British forces of Boston. AH winter 
long the city was besieged by Washington, and by the opening of spring, 1776, he felt himself 
strong enough to risk an assault; but the officers of his staff were of a different opinion, and 
a less hazardous plan was adopted. It was resolved instead of the direct assault to seize 
Dorchester Heights, gain a position from which the American batteries might command the 
cit/, and thus drive Howe out of Boston. 

For two days the attention of the British was drawn by a constant fire from the Ameri- 
can guns. Tlien, on the night of the 4th of IMarch, a strong detachment was thrown fonvard 
under cover of the darkness and reached the Heights of Dorchester unperceived. The British 
gained no hint of the movement until morning; but with the coming of light, Howe per- 
ceived at a glance that he was suddenly thrown on the defensive and that he must immedi- 
ately carry the American position or abandon the city. He 
accordingly ordered a force of two thousand four hundred 
men to storm the Heights before nightfall. 

Washington, notmg the plans and purposes of his 
adversary, visited the trenches, exhorted his men and gave 
directions to his officers. A spirit of battle flamed up like 
that at Bunker Hill. It was the anniversar,- of the Boston 
massacre, and that circumstance added fuel to the fires of 
patriotism. A battle was momentarily expected ; but in the 
lull of preparation a storm arose, and rendered the harbor 
impassable for ships. The tempest continued to rage 
for a whole day, and the attack could not be made. Before 
the following morning the Americans had so strengthened 
ti.eir fortifications that all thoughts of an assault were ^"^""^ °'' ''°^''''''' '"^■ 

abandoned, and General Howe found himself reduced to the extremity of giving up the 
capital of New England. 

It was still in the power of the British, however, to destroy what they could not hold. 
Boston might be burned to the ground. Such a disaster must needs weigh heavily upon 
the patriots. Washington entered into negotiations with the British commander, and it 

(196) 



i^ 




/, 


X^ 


3 


i 


^'%A^am9bj£ri 


j^l 


ll^^ 


g^p 


i 


^* ^m 


^H 


r^m 


V 


.^' 




BlWStt 


iUhi 


lf%t 


St 


°T V«#^ 


1 


^ 


m 






3d 


fA 






. P 


piw 


ifcpLw. 


UOJUt V 


^ 







EPOCH OF INDEPENDENCE. 197 

was agreed that the latter should retire from Boston unmolested on condition that the 
city should not be injured. On the 17th of March, the whole British army went on 
board the fleet and sailed away. About fifteen hundred loyalists who had chosen to 
hold to the King's cause against the cause of their country, and dreading to remain in a 
city and among a people by whom they must henceforth be ostracized as Tories and traitors, 
escaped with the British squadron. On the 20th of the month Washington made a formal 
entry at the head of his triumphant anny. The country was wild with delight at the expul- 
sion of the enemy. Congress ordered a gold medal struck in honor of Washington ' ' victo- 
rious ever the enemy for the first time put to flight. ' ' 

THE CONFLICT OPENS IN OTHER SECTIONS. 

The recovery of Boston from the British entailed two kinds of results on the patriot 
cause. New England at once recovered herself ; Boston was fortified ; a sense of relief 
came, and the people of New England feeling themselves freed, as they hoped for ever, of 
the presence of the British, regarded the conflict as virtually over and the victory won- 
This confidence was salutary so far as New England was concerned; but owing to the strong 
local prejudices existing among the colonies, it was injurious to the cause in other parts of 
the field. In a word, the men of New England were ready to fight to the death for the de- 
fence of New England, but did not feel the force of that higher patriotism which would 
lead them to fight with equal resolution and courage in the defence of the other American 
States. 

The evil influences of these feelings were felt as soon as the commander-in-chief began 
to withdraw his army from Boston for the defence of New York. Washington perceived 
that, though Boston was rescued. New York was exposed. General Lee was sent forward 
to the latter city with Connecticut militia, and reached New York just in time to baffle an 
attempt of Sir Henry Clinton, whose fleet arrived off" Sandy Hook. 
He found that the city was already preoccupied by the patriot 
forces, and thereupon sailed away southward, to be joined by Sir 
Peter Parker and Lord Cornwallis, with two thousand five hundred 
additional 'British troops. 

This force was reckoned suflScient for the capture of Charles- 
ton, but the Carolinians were by no means sleeping. Led by 
General Lee they rose in anus and flocked to the city as the men of 
New England had rushed to Boston after Concord and Lexington. 



^.1.1"- 







Jame*^ ^ -7" \ *$* 



5 in T5 



Charleston was quickly fortified and a fort commanding the entrance 

to the harbor was built on Sullivan's Island. On the 4th of June the British squadron 
came in sight, but it was not until the 28th that the hostile fleet began a bombardment 
of the fortress which was commanded by Colonel William Moultrie. The British vessels 
obtained a good position and poured a torrent of balls upon the fort, but the walls, built 
of palmetto wood, were little injured. The flag-staff" was shot away, but Sergeant Jasper 
leaped down outside the parapet, recovered the flag and set it in its place again — an' 
incident famous in the revolutionary tradition. As evening came on the British, finding 
that they could make no impression upon the fortification, were obliged to withdraw after 
losing two hundred men. The patriot loss was thirty-two. As s6on as the British could 
repair their fleet they abandoned Charleston and sailed for New York. 

It was now evident that the military^ operations of 1776 were to be centred at New 
York and vicinity. During the summer Washington's forces were nominally increased by 
Volunteering to about twenty-seven thousand men, but the effective force was little more 



igS 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



than half that number. The recruits were raw, undisciplined, unused to hardship, strangeia 
to battle, poorly supplied, poorly equipped and in some instances badly commanded ; or 
not all of the patriot oiBcers were equal to their responsibilities. 

On the other side Great Britain with her enormous resources made the vastest prepara- 
tions. She entered into a treaty with some of the minor German States by which seventeen 
thousand Hessians were hired for the American war. George III. was going to quell his 
revolted provinces by seuding against them a mercenary, brutal, foreign soldien-. Twenty- 
five thousaud additional English troops were levied. A powerful squadron was fitted out to 
aid in tlie reduction of the colonies and a million dollars voted for the extraordinary expenses 
of the war department 

DAWN OF INDEPENDENCE. 

Until this epoch the hope had been entertained in America that the battle for English 
rights could be fouglit and won without the separation of the colonies from the British crown. 
The anger of the Ameri- 
cans had been against 
the ministry and the 
King rather tlian against 
the British people or tlic 
institution of monarchy. 
The vast majority of the 
patriots were up to this 
time wholly averse to 
the notion of independ- 
ence. As late as the 
spring of 1776 Washing- 
ton himself had .said til 1 
he abhorred the idea m 
separating the colonies 
from the mother comitry. 
But the heats of war 
soon melted and transfused the senti- 
ment of the Americans into another 
fonn. It was in the early part of 1776 
that this change of opinion was effected. The 
change was wellnigh universal. Only a few still 
clung to England and the ancient system. Thouj; 
colonists had thus far claimed to be loyal subjects of the 
crown they now became rebels and insurgents in earnest 
Now the hope of reconciliation seemed utterly abolished. 
The people began to urge the Assemblies and the 
As.semblies to urge Congress to declare the independence of the colonies. Congress re- 
sponded at first by recommending the colonies to adopt each and several for them- 
selves ^uch governments as might seem most conducive to the safetv and welfare of the 
people. Meanwhile the discussions of Congress tended constantly in the direction indicated 
by the popular voice. 

It was on the 7th of June, 1776, that Richard Hcnrv Lee, a delegate from Virginia, 
©flered m Congress the first resolution declaring that the United Colonies were and of right 




THE ATTACK ON FORT MOULTRIB. 



EPOCH OF INDEPENDENCE. 



199 



•nght to be Free and Independent States. A long and exciting debate ensued in whidi 
the advocates of independence constantly gained ground and the minority of opposition 
wasted away. It was first agreed that the final consideration of Lee's resolution should be 
postponed until the ist of July. Meanwhile on the nth of June, four days after the first 
introduction of the measure, Thomas Jefierson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger 
Sherman and Robert R. Livingston were appointed a committee to prepare a formal 
declaration. * 

Accordingly on the ist of July the committee made its report to Congress. On the 
next day — the 2d — Lee's resolution was adopted in the original words. During the 3d th« 
formal declaration as reported by the com- 
mittee was debated with great spirit. The 
discussion was resumed on the 4th, though it 
was now clear both within and without the 
halls of Congress that the members had risen 
to the level of their convictions and that the 
report would be adopted. At 2 o'clock on 
the afternoon of the memorable day the vote 
on the Declaration of American Independence 
was called and the measure carried by a 
unanimous vote of all the colonies. 

The tradition runs that the old bellman 
©f the Statehouse, waiting with the rope in 
his hands until afternoon, became discouraged 
and said to the bystanders, "They will 
never do it. They will never do it." But 
they did do it, and the old bellman rang out 
the note of freedom to the nation. The multi- 
tudes caught the signal and answered with 
shouts. Everywhere the Declaration was re- 
ceived with enthusiastic applause. The people 
of Philadelphia proceeded at once to throw down the king's arms and burn them in the 
streets. At Williamsburg, Charleston and Savannah bonfires were kindled, and orators 
roused the people with declamation and appeal for freedom. At Boston the Declaration wa« 
read in Faneuil Hall. At New York the populace pulled down the leaden statue of George 
ni. and cast it into bullets. Washington for his part ordered the Declaration to be read 
at the head of each brigade of the anny. 

PRINCIPLES OF THE DECLARATION. 

But what was this, our new Charter of Liberties ? The leading principles of it are 
ac follows : That all men are created equal ; that all have a natural right to life, liberty. 
«nd the pursuit of happiness ; that human governments are instituted, not for the benefiti 
of kings and princes, but for the sole purpose of securing the welfare of the people ; that 
the people have a natural right to alter or even abolish their government whenever it 

* The committee on the Declaration had at first for its chairman the mover of the resolution, Richard Henry 
Lee, but before the consideration of the subject was formally taken up Lee was called home to Virginia by sick- 
ness in his family. Thereupon Jefferson was appointed to serve in his place. The duty of preparing the Declara- 
tion devolved by seniority on John Adams, but he requested Jefferson to prepare the draught, giving as he does ia 
his Works as a reason that he himself was a Massachusetts man, JeflFerson a Virginian, and that he had noted witi 
•dinirationyif^r^o«'.r incisive style of writing! 




THOMAS. JEFFERSON. 






200 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



becomes destructive of libert)- ; that the government of George III. had become destructive 
of liberty, ar.d had tlnis passed under the ban of condemnation ; that the despotism of the 
King of England and his ministers could be shown by a long list of indisputable proofs, and 
the proofs are given ; that time and again the colonies had humbly petitioned for a redress 
«f grievances ; that all their petitions had been spumed with derision and contempt; that 
tlie King's irrational tjTanny over his American subjects was no longer endurable by free- 
men ; that an appeal to the sword is preferable to slaver}', and that, therefore, the United 
Colonies of America are and of right ought to be Free and Independent States. To the 
mpport of this nobie, manly declaration of principles the members of the Continent^ 
Congress mutually pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor. 

Already the people of the colonies were ready for the work done by Congress. Indeed 
the public mind, in its anger at British aggression and tyranny, had forenin the act of their 




ADOPTION OF THE DKCLAKATION OI- I.NDErU.NDKNCE. 

representatives. The people had been indoctrinated with the concept and purpose of 
Independence. The writings of the Adamses, Otis and Jefferson had disseminated the 
principles of political freedom, and the taste thereof was sweet on the palate of the people./ 
Thomas Paine's celebrated pamphlet on Cowmoti Sense, which more than any other single 
writing furnished the logical basis of Independence, had sapped the foundation of the 
remaining loyalty to the British crown. No sooner was the great Declaration promulgated 



I 



EPOCH OF INDEPENDENCE. 201 

than the people of the colonies, now the people of the United States, like the signers of 
their Charter of Liberty, pledged to its support their lives, their fortunes and their sacred 
honor. 

It was now a question of war and internationality. Could the American colonies 
sustain themselves against the overwhelming force of Great Britain? The enemy was 
already strong, not only in the home resources of the kingdom, but in her forces on 
American soil. In the beginning of July, General Howe was able to plant a force of 
nine thousand men on Staten Island. Thither Clinton and Cornwallis came from their 
unsuccessful attack on Charleston, and Admiral Howe, brother of the general, arrived from 
England. The whole British force now concentrated in the vicinity of New York amounted 
to not fewer than thirty thousand men. About half of these were the imported Hessians, 
for whose transit through his dominions Frederick the Great had charged so much a head, 
saying in magnificent sarcasm that that was the rate which he charged for driving live-stock 
across his kingdom ! Washington's army was greatly inferior to the enemy in every 
respect — in numbers, in equipment, in experience, in discipline. 

ENGLAND, ALARMED, SEEKS TO CONCILIATE THE AMERICANS. 

Great Britain had not expected the startling denouement of Independence. She had 
considered herself thus far as dealing with a lot of refractory, contrary, penurious, half- 
rebellious colonists, whom she might easily overawe and then punish for their contumacy. 
Now she suddenly awoke to the fact that she was confronted by a nation of people who 
would fight and die for their rights. The Declaration of Independence was read with 
astonishment, not only in England, but in every court of Europe. No other such docu- 
ment had been drawn since the beginning of the modern era. Indeed, it was doubtful, and 
is still doubtful, whether any other such political paper had ever been produced among 
men. It was admitted by the gravest sages and statesmen that the Declaration prepared 
and sent abroad by the American people in Congress could not have been surpassed by the 
most astute, learned and patriotic thinkers of ancient or modern times. The effect of it was 
tremendous in the public opinion of Europe, insomuch that Great Britain, for the moment 
shocked into her senses, deemed it prudent to tr>' conciliation. 

Could the Americans be conciliated ? That was the question. L,ord Howe was 
instructed to open negotiations and attempt conciliatory measures with the Americans. 
He and his brothers had aforetime been the friends and companions of Benjamin Franklin 
in London. With them that great philosopher and patriot had held many conferences, 
urging them to interpose against the folly of England in driving the Americans to rebel- 
lion and independence. Now the tables were turned. The mischief had been done and 
Lord Howe must become the ambassador of his country in the attempt to reestablish 
peace. Howe addressed Franklin, and through him would fain exercise an influence over 
his fellow-countrymen. Franklin replied in one of those polite but caustic letters which 
so frequently in the days of trial proceeded from his pen, concluding with these words to 
his former friend. Lord Howe : ' ' Henceforth you are my enemy, and I am 

Yours, 

B. Franklin." 

Lord Howe sent to the American Camp a despatch directed to ' ' George Washington, 
Esquire.'''' Washington refused to receive the communication which purposely ignored 
his official position as General of the American Armies. Howe then sent another 
communication addressed to "George Washington, etc., etc., etc.; " and the bearer insisted 
that and-so-forth might mean General of the American Army. But Washington sent the 



202 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



officer away. It was not likely that the proud and sedate Virginian would perrart a mes- 
senger to insult him by ignoring his official title. It was known, moreover, that Lord 
Howe's authority extended only to granting pardons at discretion to those who would 
submit to the authority of the mother country. To this the prudent Washington replied 
that since no oflfence had been committed, no pardon was required. 

BATTLE OF LONG ISLAND. 

With the breaking oflF of these inane negotiations Ivord Howe and his brother at once 
began hostilities. On the 22d of August the British to the number of ten thousand crossed, 
over to Long Island. The Americans at this time, to the number of seven or eight thou- 
sand, lay in the vicinity of Brooklyn. The British at once began an advance along several 
roads in the direction of that city and on the morning of the 27th General Grant's 
division of the British anny reached the position now occupied by the southwestern out- 
skirts of Greenwood cemetery. Here he was met by General Lord Stirling of the patriot 
army with a division of fifteen hundred men. The battle at once began, but in this part 
of the field tiiere was no decisive result. In the meantime General Von Heister, who 
commanded the British centre advanced beyond Flatbush and engaged the American centre 

under General Sullivan. Here the Hessians, who com- 
posed the larger part of Von Heister's division gained 
little or no ground, until Sullivan was suddenly alarmed 
by the noise of battle on his left and rear. 

The American left had been assigned to General Put- 
nam; but that officer had neglected to guard the passes in 
the direction of Bedford and the sequel showed that this 
neglect was fatal, for during the night General Sir 
Henr}' Clinton had made a detour from the British right 
and had occupied the heights to the east and north of the 
Jamaica road. It was his division that now came down 
by way of Bedford and fell upon the unsuspecting left of 
the American army. Sullivan in the centre found him- 
self thus surrounded and cut off; for Putnam's division 
on the left had been broken to pieces by the onset of the 
British. The patriots in tlie other parts of the line fought bravely and many broke 
through the closing ranks of the British and escaped; but the rest were scattered, killed or 
taken prisoners. 

In the meantime Cornwallis had attempted to cut off General Stirling's retreat, but 
was for the moment repulsed. Stirling's division, however, was in the greatest peril. 
Most of the men threw themselves into the rising waters at the head of a narrow inlet called 
Gowanus Bay, struggled across and saved themselves by joining the American lines at 
Brooklyn. The three generals, Stirling, Sullivan and Woodhull, were taken prisoners. 
Nearly a thousand patriots were killed and missing. The British losses were but slight. It 
seemed an easy thing for Clinton and Howe to close in on Brooklyn and complete their 
work by capturing the remainder of the American army. But this they neglected to do. 
Washington from his headquarters in New York heard the news with as much dismay as 
his strong nature was capable of manifesting. He hurried across to Brooklyn and made 
the most unwearied efforts to save his army from further disaster. Perceiving that he could 
not hold his position he resolved to withdraw to New York. The enterprise was extremely 
hazardous. At eight o'clock on the evening of the 29th of August the embarkation of 




PLAN OF THIJ BATTr.E OF LONG 
ISLAND. 



EPOCH OF INDEPENDENCE. 



203 



the troops was begun. All night with muffled oars the boatmen rowed silently back and 
forth, and at daylight on the morning of the 30th the last detachment had taken to the 
boats. With sunrise the British discovered the movement of the Americans and rushed 
forward over the defences only to find them abandoned. Nothing but a few worthless guns 
remained. The courage and sagacity of the American commander had sufficed to extricate 
his army from the extremity of peril, and the British were for the time baffled in pursuit. 

DARK PROSPECTS FOLLOWING DEFEAT. 
I But the defeat on I/ong Island proved to be most disastrous to the American cause 
The patriot losses had been severe. At this time the terms of enlistment of many of the 
troops expired, and instead of again entering the ranks they returned to their homes- 
There were evidences of disintegration, and it was only by the constant exertion of Wash- 
ington that the remainder of his army was kept from disbanding. 

The British fleet now moved up the bay, and anchored withing cannon shot of New 
York city. The place became untenable, and Washington was obliged to retire to the 
Heights of Harlem. On the 15th of September, the British 
efiected a landing three miles above New York — for the city 
then occupied only the lower part of the island — and extended 
their lines across Manhattan. By this means they gained pos- 
session of the city. On the i6th of the month, there was a 
skirmish between advanced parties of the two armies, in which 
the British were worsted and lost nearly a hundred men. 

A month later Howe embarked his forces, passed into Ivong 
Island sound, and landed in the vicinity of Westchester. His 
object was to get upon the American left flank and cut oS" Wash- 
ington's communications with the eastern States ; but the 
American general detected the movement and faced the enemy 
east of Harlem river. On the 28th a battle of some severity was 
brought on at White Plains. Howe began the engagement with 
a brisk cannonade, which was answered with equal spirit by the 
Americans. The latter, however, lost one position, but im- 
mediately intrenched themselves in another. Night came on, and 
Washington deemed it prudent to withdraw to the Heights of Northcastle. General Howe 
remained for a few days at White Plains, and then returned with his forces to New York. 

Soon afterwards the American army gave up Manhattan Island and crossed to the west 
bank of the Hudson, taking post at Fort lyce. Four thousand men were left for the time at 
Northcastle, under command of General Lee. Fort Washington, on Manhattan Island, 
was also held for the time by three thousand men, under Colonel Magaw. The skilful con- 
struction of this fort had attracted the attention of Washington and led to an acquaintance 
with the engineer, Alexander Hamilton, then a stripling but twenty years of age. 

A series of disasters now ensued very disheartening to the American cause. On the 
16th of November, Fort Washington was captured by the British. The garrison were made 
prisoners of war and were ciowded into the jails of New York. Two days afterwards Fort Lee 
also was taken by Lord Comwallis. By these ruinous captures Washington's army was re- 
duced to about three thousand men, and with these he began to retreat from the Hudson to 
Newark. Comwallis and Knyphausen pressed hard after the fugitives. The patriots con- 
tinued their flight to Princeton, and finally to Trenton on the Delaware. Nothing but th« 
skill of the commander saved the remnant of his forces from dispersion and capture. 




SCENE OF OPERATIONS ABOUT 
NEW YORK, 1776. 



204 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

It was on the 8th of December that Washington finally sncceeded in putting the Dela- 
ware between himself and the pursuing foe. Cornwallis having no boats was obliged to 
wait for the freezing of the river before continuing the pursuit. In the interim the British 
anny was stationed in the towns and villages on the left bank of the river. Of these 
stations Trenton was the most important. The place was held by about two thou- 
sand Hessians, under Colonel Rahl. It was the design of the British as soon as the river 
should be frozen to march on Philadelphia, capture that citj-, scatter the remnants of the 
American army and restore the authority of Great Britain. Such a result was greatly 
feared by prudent Americans, and it was deemed expedient as a precautionary measure that 
Congress should be adjourned from Pliiladelphia to Baltimore. 

DISCOURAGEMENTS TO THE AMERICAN CAUSE. 

In the meantime the fleet of Admiral Parker which had been engaged in the attack on 
Charleston bore down upon the coast of New England. On the same day that Washington 
crossed the Delaware the islands of Rhode Island and Conanicut were taken by the British 
squadron. The American fleet, under Commander Hopkins, was blockaded in the mouth 
of the Blackstone River. During all these movements General Charles Lee, with a large 
division of the American forces, had remained at Northcastle. To him Washington sent 
one despatch after another to abandon the place and repair with his troops to the west bank 
of the Delaware, where all might be concentrated under the commander-in-chief. Lee 
marched with his division as far as Morristown, and established his own quarters at a place 
called Basking Ridge. Here on the 13th of December a squad of British cavalry suddenly 
appeared, captured Lee and hurried him off" to New York. General Sullivan took com- 
mand of the division and hastened to join Washington beyond the Delaware. The entire 
American forces were thus augmented to a little more than six thousand men. 

But it was the midnight of the patriot cause. It appeared that the hope of Indepen- 
dence flickered to the socket. The forces at the command of Washington were unable to 
cope with the enemy, and the whole country was greatly dispirited. It was emergency 
such as this, however, that served to bring out the grandeur and strength of Washington. 
With him there was no thought of yielding. He saw in the present ebb of fortune that 
extreme of affairs from which a reaction must necessarily arise. He perceived in the dis- 
position of the British forces an opportunity to strike a blow for his country-. It was 
evident that the leaders of the enemy were off" their guard. The Hessians on the east side 
of the river were scattered in their quarters from Trenton to Burlington. Washington 
conceived the bold design of crossing the Delaware and striking the detachment at Trenton 
before a concentration of the enemy's forces could be eff"ected. This design he now pro- 
ceeded to carr)' into execution. 

, The American army was arranged in three divisions. The first, under General John 
Cadwallader, was ordered to cross the river at Bristol and attack the enemy encamped in 
that neighborhood. General Ewing was directed to pass over a little below Trenton, in 
order to intercept the possible retreat of the enemy. Washington himself, with twenty-four 
hundred men under immediate command of Sullivan and Greene, was to cross the Delaware 
nine miles above Trenton and march down the river to surprise and capture the town. For 
all these movements the night of Christmas was selected as furnishing the best opportunity 
of success. 

Cold weather had now supervened and the Delaware was already filled with floating 
ice. Generals Ewing and Cadwallader were both bafiled in their eff"orts to cross the river, 
as was also General Putnam, who had been ordered to effect a crossing at Philadelphia and 



EPOCH OF INDEPENDENCE. 



205 




£ * " 12 IS 

PLAN OF BATTLES OF 

PRINCETON AND 

TRENTON. 



make a feint against the British in that quarter. Washington, however, succeeded in 
getting over at the place now called Taylorsville. But the crossing was attended with the 
greatest difficulty and hazard. 

WASHINGTON'S CAPTURE OF THE HESSIANS. 

The commander once on the Jersey shore divided his army into two columns and 
pressed forward by two different roads, one of which entered Trenton on the west side next 
the river and the other from the east. The crossing was greatly delayed, and it was already 
eight o'clock in the morning of the 26th before the Americans came in sight of the prize. 
But their courage rose to the occasion. It had been correctly divined by Washington that 
the Hessian soldiers and their officers would spend the Christmas day 
in holiday and rioting. They were still in their quarters, or only 
beginning to stir in the early morning, when the Americans from two 
directions burst into the town. 

The Hessians sprang from their quarters and attempted to form in 
line. The American cannon began to roar and flashes of musketry 
sent deadly volleys whistling along the streets. Colonel Rahl was 
mortally wounded at the first onset. There was momentary confusion, 
and then nearly a thousand of the Hessians threw down their arms 
and surrendered at discretion. Only about six hundred, principally a 
body of light-horse, succeeded in making their escape in the direction 
of Princeton. Washington at once drew off with his prisoners and 
captured munitions and supplies. Before nightfall he was safe with 
his army on the other side of the Delaware. 

The trophies of the battle were not inconsiderable. The Americans for their part lost 
not a man in the engagement, which had continued hotly for thirty-five minutes. The 
enemy lost seventeen killed and seventy-eight wounded. The number of prisoners taken 
was nine hundred and forty-six, nearly all of them the mercenaries from Hesse. Of arms 
the patriots captured twelve hundred British nuiskets, six brass cannon, two of them being 
i2-pounders, and all the flags and standards of the brigade. It was with good reason that 
Lord George Germain, the British Secretary for the Colonies, wrote, "All our hopes were 
blasted by the unhappy afiair at Trenton. ' ' 

The British, with good reason surprised at these movements of a foe whom they had 
supposed to be virtually vanquished, began to fall back from their outposts and concentrated 
at Princeton. Lord Cornwallis, earlier in the season believing the war to be over, had gone 
to New York and prepared to return to Europe. Now he must hasten back to his imperiled 
forces. Reaching Princeton he resumed command and began at once to devise plans for 
recovering the ground v/hich had been lost by the unexpected successes of the Americans. 

So closed the year 1776 — the year of Independence. Only ten days previously General 
Howe had waited only for the freezing of the Delaware before taking up his quarters in 
Philadelphia. That done, already in anticipation he busied himself with the restoration of 
British authority and the final extinction of local resistance here and there. Already in 
imagination he saw the banner of St. George floating peacefully over every colonial capital 
and already received the thanks of his gracious sovereign, George III., of England. Now 
all this dream was suddenly dissipated. Now all the conditions of the conflict were reversed. 
Now the question was whether he and his army would be able to hold a single town in New 
Jersey against the onsets of reviving patriotism. 



CHAPTER XV. 




PROGRESS OF THE REVOLUTION. 

NEW YEAR'S sun of 1777 saw the army of Washing- 
ton about five thousand strong encamped at Treuton. 
Lord Cornwallis was by no means disposed to yield the 
field to his enemy without battle. Arriving at Prince- 
ton he gathered together his forces and proceeded at 
once against the Americans. The British were much 
superior in numerical strength and equipment. Corn- 
wallis reached Trenton on the afternoon of the ist and 
a severe skirmish occurred in the outskirts of the 
town. 
The position of Washington was critical in the last degree. Should he be defeated 
in the approaching battle it would be impossible for him to retreat to a place of safety. 
In the emergency he deemed it prudent to withdraw from Trenton and take a more 
defensible position on the south bank of the Assanpink Creek. The British took possession 
of the town and in the afternoon attempted to force a passage of the stream, but were driven 
back. Night was approaching and Cornwallis deferred his principal attack till to-morrow. 
With the coming of nightfall Washington called a council and it was determined to 
leave the camp, pass the British left and march upon the enemy at Princeton, about thirteen 
miles away. There Cornwallis had left one division of his forces. Washington caught at 
the opportunity thus afforded to strike the enemy in detail. He accordingly removed his 
baggage to Burlington, on the Delaware. The campfires were brightly kindled and kept 
burning through the night Then the anny was put in motion in the direction of Prince- 
ton. Everj'thing was done in silence; the movement was undiscovered by the enemy and 
the morning light showed the British sentries on the Assanpink a deserted camp. 

At the very time when Cornwallis's pickets discovered the withdrawal of the Americans 
Washington was entering Princeton. At sunrise Cornwallis heard the dull roar of the 
American guns in battle. The event showed that the British division at Princeton had been 
ordered the day before to withdraw on the morning of the 2d and proceed to Trenton. 
This order they were beginning to obey when Washington reached the town. The Ameri- 
cans met them on the outskirts of Princeton and the battle at once began. At the first 
charge of the British regulars the raw militia gave away in confusion, but they were rallied 
and brought into line again by Washington. The Pennsylvania regulars, under lead of the 
commander-in-chief, held their ground until the rally was effected. The tide of battle 
turned and the British were routed with a loss of four hundred and thirty men in killed, 
wounded and missing. On the American side the brave General Mercer was mortally 
wounded at the beginning of the engagement. Stmck down by a blow from the butt of a 
musket, lie refused to surrender and was bayonetted to death. The American loss from the 
tank and file was not nearly so great as that of the enemy. 

(206) 



EPOCH OF INDEPENDENCE. 



207 




Washington, though victorious, was in peril of the powerful Cornwallis, who came on 
hastily from Trenton, but was not in time to save his division from defeat. The American 

commander at once 
withdrew and on the 
5th of January found 
a defensible position 
at Morristown. Corn- 
wallis for his part 
retired to New Bruns- 
wick. This was clearly 
a retreat. The New 
Jersey provincials per- 
ceived that in the last 
ten days conditions 
had been reversed and 
that the enemy was 
worsted. The greater 
part of the State was 
continued to contract 



THE DEATH OF GENERAL MERCER. 

soon recovered by the patriots. Cornwallis 

his line until all his forces were concentrated at New Brunswick and 

Amboy. 

A SERIES OF ENGAGEMENTS. 

Thus passed the winter of 1776-77. The first movement of the 
following spring was a success for the British. They marched against the American 
force at Peekskill and destroyed the patriot stores collected at that place. On the 13th 
of April Cornwallis in person attacked General Lincoln, who was stationed on the 
Raritan; but the latter being inferior in numbers made good his retreat. 

TRYON'S INVASION OF CONNECTICUT. 

On the 25th of April, General Tryon made an invasion of Connecticut and his opera- 
tions were characterized by a savagery which General Howe heartily condemned as dis- 
graceful to the name of Briton, Tryon not only wantonly destroyed Danbury, Norwalk 
and Fairfield, but he massacred a part of Baylor's corps at Tappan and destroyed with the 
same merciless slaughter a detachment of Wayne's troops at Paoli, refusing to receive 
their offers of capitulation. It was during this incendiary and murderous riot that Bene- 
dict Arnold displayed for the first time bis matchless heroism, and made good his escape 
through such fortune as gave to the incident a color of miracle. 

After burning a large number of houses, both public and private, and visiting all 
manner of insults upon the helpless people, Tryon designed to complete the plunder and 
destniction of all the considerable places in Connecticut Report of his marauding excur- 
sions, however, soon brought out a force of six hundred militia, under General David 
Wooster and Benedict Arnold, who by forced marches attempted to intercept Tryon at 
Danbury. Being apprised of their approach he retreated towards Ridgefield, but was 
followed so rapidly that Wooster at the head of his divided corps, with four hundred men 
struck Tryon's rear, capturing forty prisoners after a brief skinnish. Tryon, whose force 
was fully two thousand men was too cowardly to risk a battle, but continued his retreat 
nntil Arnold made a circuit and came up in front of the fleeing English and threw up a 



20S 



rKOPLI-rS HISTORY OF THP: united vSTATES. 



barricade of logs, stone and earth, intending to inteicept the enemy and force an engage- 
ment regardless of his vastly inferior force. When Tr>-on came in sight of Arnold's 




.,;,.Hi:i^PBisa^' ""■' "' 



EXPLOIT OF BENEDICT ARNOLD. 

fortified position and realized that his retreat was cut off either way, he ordered General 
Agnew to advance in solid column with the main body while detachments were sent to 




EPOCH OF INDEPENDENCE. 209 

outflank Arnold and gain his rear. The position of Arnold was by this movement 
rendered perilous in the extreme. Wooster still hung with tenacity on the enemy's rear, 
but very soon after the engagement opened he was struck by a musket ball and knocked 
from his horse. Though not instantly killed he died two days later, having sur\'ived for 
that length of time a broken back, the bone of which was shattered by the ball. Upon 
Arnold now devolved the chief command and right bravely he assumed the responsibility. 
Instead of seeking an escape he heroically confronted the enemy and easily held his posi- 
tion against the heavy odds until Agnew succeeded in gaining a ledge of rocks from which 
he poured a concentrated fire upon the Americans. A panic followed this slaughter, but 
Arnold stood defiant amid the dreadful hail-storm of bullets. It is said a whole platoon 
of British fired at him at a distance of not more than thirty yards but not a bullet struck 
him ; his horse, however, fell pierced by several balls and for a moment the foot of Arnold 

was held fast in a stirrup. At this juncture a Tory 
rushed forward with musket and bayonet shouting, "You 
are my prisoner ! ' ' Drawing a pistol Arnold shot the 
Tory, dead and in a trice he had liberated his foot and 
bounded into a neighboring thicket pursued by a shower 
of bullets. Arnold's escape appeared so remarkable to 
the British that no further effort was made to catch him, 
while both sides had suffered so severely in the engage- 
--;-¥¥?..--i5i^aS!?Pf5«:~;- j^gj^j. ^j^^j. neither desired its renewal. A few days later, 

PLACE OF THE BARRICADE. , ,t, -kt 11 -l 1 J ^.1. i 

however, as Trj'on was near Norwalk he learned that 
Arnold had turned again to pursue him, having placed himself at the head of five 
hundred men and formed a junction at Sangatuck with Colonel Huntington with as 
many more. Several sharp skirmishes now followed with the retreating enemy and always 
to the advantage of the Americans, but the British finally succeeded in making their 
escape, though not until they had lost three hundred men and nearly all their munitions. 

On the American side there were a few successful movements. On the evening of the 
2 2d of May, Colonel Meigs, of Connecticut, embarked two hundred men in whaleboats, 
crossed Long Island Sound, and attacked Sag Harbor. The British garrison at that place 
was overpowered ; only four of the number escaped, five or six were killed, and the remain- 
ing ninety taken prisoners. The British stores were destroyed by the patriots, who without 
the loss of a man returned to Guilford. The exploit was famous in the tradition of the 
year, and Colonel Meigs was rewarded by Congress with an elegant sword. 

With the opening of the new year it was the policy of Washington to concentrate his 
forces on the Hudson. At the same time a camp of instruction and discipline was laid out 
on the Delaware and placed under charge of Arnold. In the latter part of May, the com- 
mander-in-chief left his winter-quarters and advanced to a position within ten miles of the 
British camp. General Howe crossed over from New York and threatened an attack on the 
American lines, but no serious onset was made. For a month the two armies counter- 
marched and skirmished with no decisive result to either. Finally the British began to 
fall back, and retired at length to Amboy. On the 30th of June, they finally abandoned 
New Jersey, and crossed over to Staten Island. 

The American Congress had in the meantime recovered its equanimity with the 
expulsion of the British from New Jersey, and had returned from Baltimore to Philadel- 
phia. A spirit of confidence was restored throughout the country. The retirement of the 
enemv served a better purpose than a great victory in the field. The patriots rallied and 
14 



2IO 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 






C,//J(vi^viiJj:i'3W 



the time-ser\'ers were thrown into coufusion. In Philadelphia Tor}ism had been rampanL 
Only two months before the retreat of the British, prayers had been publicly read for th* 
King! Now all that was ended, and the first anniversary of the Declaration of Indepen- 
deuce was proudly celebrated in the city. 

THE SYMPATHV OF FRANCE IS MANIFESTED FOR THE NEW UNION. 

Now it was that the question of international relations between the United States and 
flther nations arose upon the attention of tlie American Congress and of several foreign gov- 
jemments. More than two years had elapsed since the outbreak of hostilities. More than 
one year had gone by since the Declaration of Independence; and the Americans were by 
no merjis subdued. Aye, more, they presented a bold front to the British, and had actually 
Kiccceded in expelling the armies of the motlicr country from at least one State of the 
new Union. 

These circumstances were calculated to excite the interest and sympathy of foreign na- 
tions. From tlie outbreak of the war the people of France had been most friendly to the 
American causa England and France were at peace; but the sympathy of the French 
court for the new American Republic could hardly 
be concealed. The ministers of Louis XVI. were 
not ready openly to provoke a war witli Great 
Britain, but tlicy secretly applauded the American 
colonists and rejoiced at every British misfortune. 
At length this sympathy was more outspoken. The 
Americans came to understand that if money was 
required France would lend it ; if anns were to be 
piurchased, France had arms to sell. During the 
year 1777 the French people in public and private 
capacity, by intrigue or direct merchandise, suc- 
ceeded in supplying the colonies with twenty 
thousand muskets and a thousand barrels of powder. 

The student of general history knows that at 
this epoch republicanism as a form of political 
tliought and a dream of enthusiasm began to warm 
the mind of France, premonitory of the great Re- 
volution. French Republicans and Idealists began to speak for the American cause 
and presently to embark under the wannth of their enthusiasm for the American 
sliore. Foremost of all came Gilbert Motier, that young IMarquis of Lafayette 
whose name was destined to be immortally associated with our stniggle foi Independence. 
Fitting a vessel at his own expense, he eluded the officers of the French ports — for he had 
been forbidden to sail — and with the brave Baron de Kalb and a small company of followera 
reached South Carolina in April of 1777. He entered the Continental army as a volunteer 
and private, but was rapidly promoted, and in July of this year was commissioned a major- 
general. 

From a military point of view the British now began to beat about as though they 
would find a more advantageous method of attack. In considering the field of operations 
they set their eye on Canada- That province having remained loyal to the crown afforded 
by way of the SL Lawrence an easy avenue of entrance by which an anny might be carried 
far into the interior of our continent and be brought, so to speak, upon the flank of the 
colonies, now the United States. 




MARQUIS OF LAI-AVETTE. 



EPOCH OF INDEPENDENCE. 



211 



These considerations led to the planning of a great campaign for the year 1777. The 
txpedition was entrusted to General John Burgoyne, who superseded Sir Guy Careton in 
command of all the British forces in Canada. Burgoj'ne spent the spring in organizing an 
army of ten thousand men for the invasion of New York from the north. The forces con- 
sisted of British, Hessians and Canadians with a considerable contingent of Indian allies. 
The plan of the invasion embraced a descent upon Albany and New York Cit>^ and the 
cutting off of New England from the middle and southern colonies. 

By the first of June the expedition proceeded as far as Lake Champlain and on the i6th 
of that month Crown Point was taken. Here there was a pause, but on the 5th of July 
Ticonderoga, which was held by General Arthur St. Clair with three thousand men was 
captured. The garrison, however, escaped and retreated to Hubbard ton, Vermont. The 
retreating force was pursued and overtaken near that place, but the Americans tviming 

upon the British fought 
so stubbornly as to check 
the pursuit. On the 
following day the British 
succeeded in capturing 
White Hall with a large 
quantity of stores which 
the patriots had collected 
at that place. 

While affairs were 
thus somewhat favorable 
to the British in the ex- 
treme northwest, though 
they had lost Ticonde- 
roga, the patriots in other 
sections were making 
themselves felt by deliver- 
ing eflFective blows upon 
CAPTURE OP GENERAi, PRESCoTT. the enemy. On July 10, 
1777, Colonel William Barton planned a bold stratagem 
to capture General Prescott, commander-in-chief of 
the British forces in Rhode Island. Prescott had his 
quarters in a farm-house near Newport, and as aflairs 
were quiet in that vicinity he failed to take any pre- 
cautions to ensure his safety. Learning the situation, 
Colonel Barton with forty militiamen in boats rowed 
across Narragansett Bay at night and landed in a cove 
less than one hundred yards from the house in which 
Prescott, all unconscious of danger, was sleeping. Noiselessly Barton ascended the 
hill with his company and surrounded the house before his presence was detected. At 
the instant of alarm the half-sleeping sentinel who guarded the door was seized and in 
another moment the militiamen forced their way into the house, compelling a negro servant 
to show them the general's room. They captured him in his robe de chambre and then rushed 
their prisoner off to the waiting boats. So quietly was the capture effected that Barton sue- 




212 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 




ceeded in passing under the very stern of an English man-of-war without his presence being 
discovered and escaped with his distinguished prisoner to Providence, for which gallant ser- 
vice Congress presented him with a sword. 

BATTLE OF BENNINGTON. 
The American army of the north at this time numbered no more than four or five thou- 
sand men. It was under command of General Philip Schuyler and was posted at Fort 
Edward. On came the British to this place and the 
Americans were obliged to retreat down tlie Hudson. Fort 
Edward was taken on the 30th of July, but by this time 
the supplies of Burgoyne's anny began to fail and he made 
a pause, sending out Colonels Bauna and Breymann with 
■trong detachments to seize the American stores at Ben- 
nington, V ermont. But Colonel John Stark rallied the 
New Hampshire militia and confronted the enemy. On the 
X5th of August he met the British near the village of bennington battle-ground. 

Bennington and on the following morning there was a furious battle. The Green 
Mountain boys fought in a manner to remind the enemy of Lexington and Bunker Hill. 
Colonel Baum's force instead of gathering supplies was utterly routed, the British losing 
in killed, wounded and prisoners more than eight hundred men. It was really a stagger- 
ing blow to the invasion and the country was thrilled with the news of the victor}'. 

In the meantime a still greater reverse to Bui'goyne had occurred in another part of the 
4eld. At the beginning of the campaign a large force of Canadians and Indians had been 

sent under General St. 
.'■J^ Mue. [\ 1 . Legeragainst Fort 

Schuyler, on the Mo- 
hawk. On the 3d of 
August (1777) St. Leger 
reached his destination 
and invested the fort 
General Herkimer on the 
other side rallied the 
militia of the country, 
but was defeated with the 
loss of a hundred and 
sixty men. About the 
same time the audacious 
Arnold had led a detach- 
ment from the Hudson 
for the relief of Fort 
Schuyler, but he employ- 
ed a singular stratagem 
A half-witted boy was captured and 
holes being cut in his clotiies similar to the marks of bullets he was promised his freedom 
if he would go into the camp of St. Leger and there exhibit the rents in his coat in proof 
of the narrowness of his escape and represent the Americans as leaves for number. This 
the boy did with such dramatic effect that the Indian allies of St Leger broke and fled. 
The British commander, dismayed at their treachery and cowardice, raised the siege and 
■etreated. This news also was bonie to Burgoyne at Fort Edward. 




THE ALARM AT FORT SCmA'LER. 

to give the enemy an exaggerated idea of his forces. 



EPOCH OF INDEPENDENCE. 



213 




Having failed in these two efforts to gather supplies from the invaded country Burgoyne 
was now obliged to halt for a month while military stores and provisions were brought down 
from Canada. Reports from every field of action being favorable the patriots gathered 
courage with each day and rallied to the standard of General Schuyler, until his force num- 
bered nine thousand men, thus equalling the strength of the enemy. General Lincoln 
arrived with the militia of New England. Washington sent to the north several detach- 
ments from the regular army. Colonel Daniel Morgan came with his division of riflemeo 
from the South — ^very dangerous men in battle. General Horatio Gates superseded Schuylel 

in command of the northern army. By the beginning of 
fall the Americans were able to assume the offensive and 
on the 8th of September Gates's headquarters were 
advanced as far as Stillwater. At Bemis's Heights, a 
short distance north of this place, a camp was laid out 
and fortified under direction of the noted Polish engineer 
and patriot, Thaddeus Kosciusko. 

THE DEFEAT AND CAPTURE OF BURGOYNE. 

Already Burrayne perceived before him a pathway 

BURGOYNE'S camp on the HUDSON. -, J liil 1.^1 ^ J -I-/ 

01 hazardous battles ; but he must advance or mglonously 
recede. On the 14th of September he crossed the Hudson and took post at Saratoga. 
Now the two armies came face to face. On the 19th a general battle ensued, continuing 
until nightfall. The conflict though severe was indecisive; but indecision with the 
Americans was victory. The latter retired within their lines and the British slept on the 
field. The condition of Burgoyne momentarily grew more critical. His supplies failed. 
His Canadian and Indian allies deserted his standard. His forces wasted away while those 
of his antagonist constantly increased. 

By this time it became known at New York that the British army of the north was 
Imperiled. General Sir Henry Clinton, the commander-in-chief, made most unwearied 
efforts to save Burgoyne from impending disaster. He organized an 
expedition, sailed up the Hudson and captured Forts Clinton and 
Montgomery ; but nothing further could be accomplished. The 
diversion failed and Burgoyne became desperate. On the 7th of 
October he hazarded another battle in which he lost several of his 
bravest officers and nearly seven hundred privates. The accom- 
plished British General Frasier, who commanded the right wing of 
Burgoyne' s army, was killed on the field. His men disheartened at his 
fall, turned and fled. On the American side General Arnold was 
the inspiring genius of the battle. The result of the engagement 
was a complete victory for the Americans. 

Burgoyne must now retreat. He began a retrograde movement 
and two days after the battle reached Saratoga. Here he was scene of burgoyne's 
intercepted by Gates and Lincoln and the game was up. Nothing 
remained but capitulation or destruction. On the 17th of the month the terms offered 
by General Gates were accepted by Burgoyne, and the whole British army, numbering five 
thousand seven hundred and ninety-one men, became prisoners of war. Among the 
captives were six members of the British Parliament! Forty- two pieces of brass 
artillery, five thousand muskets and an immense quantity of stores were the added 




214 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



fruits of the victory. The great invasion had ended in disaster to the British cause, 
overwliehning, total and final. 

After the surrender, with rare magnanimity General Gates invited Burgoyne and the 
otlier captive officers to join him at his head- ~ " -^^ 

quarters, which was a modest farm-house of ^^ -^ 

inconsiderable size and accept his hospitalities. ,- z " ^^ 

The scene which followed has few examples 
in historj'. A magnificent dinner was pre- 
pared at which Gates acted as host, and re- 
garding the English officers as his guest, he 




SURRENDER OF BtlRGOVNB. 



treated them with 
the most profuse 
cordiality, which. 
mitigated the humi- 
liation of their de- 
feat so far that they 
drank several hearty 



bumpers to the health alike of their host and magnanimous victor. 

In another part of the field, however, affairs had not gone well for the Americans. In 




EPOCH OF INDEPENDENCE. 215 

the south a great campaign had been in progress during the summer and the patriots 
were sorely pressed. On the 23d of July (1777) General Howe with eighteen thousand men 
had sailed from New York for an attack on Philadelphia. The plan of a land campaign 
across New Jersey was now abandoned for an expedition by sea and up the Bay of Dela- 
ware. The Americans, however, had obstructed that water and the British General, chang- 
ing his plan, entered the Chesapeake with the design of reaching the head of the bay and 
from that point making the attack by land. '• 

In order to meet this danger Washington advanced his headquarters from Philadelphia 
to Wilmington. At that place he drew in the detachments of his army to the number of 

nearly twelve thousand men. The forces of 
General Howe were vastly superior, but Washing- 
ton was not without hope that he might be able 
to beat back the invaders and save the capital. 
BATTLE OF THE BRANDYWINE. 
The British squadron made its way into the 
Chesapeake to the headwaters of the bay and the 
troops were landed at Elk River in Maryland. 
From that point the invasion was begun overland 
in the direction of Philadelphia. Washington 
placed himself in the path of the enemy and selected 
GATES'S HEADQUARTERS, WHERE HE BANQUETED the Small Hvcr Brandywiuc as his line of defence. 

BURGOYNE AFTER HIS SURRENDER. . , , , ^ . . , . 

He stationed the left wing of his army at a crossing 
called Chadd's Ford, while the right, under General Sullivan, was extended for some 
distance up the river, for Washington could not discover with certainty at what point 
the enemy would attempt to cross. On the nth of September the British reached 
the Brandywine and a battle was begun. The Hessians, under command of Knyphausen, 
attacked the American left at the ford ; but the main division of the British, led by 
Cornwallis and Howe, marched up the right bank of the Brandywine and crossed 
at a point beyond the American right. General Sullivan was thus outflanked. Wash- 
ington was misled by false information ; the right wing was broken in by a charge of 
Cornwallis, and the day was hopelessly lost. A retreat ensued during the night and the 
Americans drew off in tolerable order to West Chester. 

The loss of the Americans in the battle of the Brandywine amounted to a thousand 
men ; that of the British to five hundred and eighty-four. General Lafayette was severely 
wounded. Count Pulaski so distinguished himself in this engagement that Congress 
honored him with the rank of Brigadier. Washington continued his retreat from West 
Chester across the Schuylkill to German town. On the 15th of September, however, he 
recrossed the river and joined battle with Howe at Warren's tavern. The engagement 
•opened with a spirited skirmish and it was believed by both commanders that a decisive action 
was at hand ; but just at the beginning of the conflict a violent tempest of wind andj 
rain swept over the neld and the combatants were deluged. Their cartridges were'' 
soaked and fighting was made impossible. Washington, however, still attempted to keep 
between the British and the city ; but General Howe succeeded in crossing the Schuylkill 
and hastened onward to Philadelphia. On the 26th of September the city was taken with- 
out resistance and the main division of the British anny was quartered at Gennantown. 

THE FIGHT FOR GERMANTOWN. 

The loss of Philadelphia again made it necessary for Congress to remove its sittings. 
"That body adjourned first to I,ancaster and afterwards to York, where it continued t* 



2l6 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



hold its sessions until the next summer. The American headquarters were established on 
Skippack crctk, about twenty miles from the city. Though the British had possession of 
Philadelphia, Washington, after his manner, was on the alert to strike a blow that might 
again, as in the case of Trenton and Princeton, reverse the condition of the contending 
parties. This he attempted to do on the night of the 3d of October, at Germantown, a 
suburb on the north of Philadelphia. 

The movement, however, was impeded by the roughness of the roads. The advancing 
columns reached their destination at irregular inter\'als and the British outposts were thu3 
able to concentrate and offer battle. The surprise was a failure ; but there was much severe 
fighting and at one time it seemed that the British would be oversvhelmed. In the crisis 
oi the battle, however, they gained possession of a large stone mansion, the residence of 
Judge Chew, and could 
not be dislodged. The 
Americans fought 
valiantly in their attempt 
to stonn this position, but 
the tide of battle turned 
against them and the 
day was lost. Of the 
Americans about a thou- 
sand were killed, wounded 
and missing, while the 
total British loss was but 
five hundred and thirty- 
five. 

Thus far, though the 
British held the capitil, 
their position was pre- battle of germantown— attack on chew's house. 

carious, or at least uncomfortable, from the fact that the Americans held control of the 
river Delaware. Two forts, Mercer and Mifflin, below Pliiladelphia, were garrisoned b\- the 
Americans, and the guns of the bastions were sufficient to command the river. On the 
2 2d of October Fort Mercer was attacked by a Hessian force twelve hundred strong, led 
by Count Duiiop ; but the assault was unsuccessful. Nearly one-third of those engaged 
in it fell before the American entrenchments. Coincidently with this affair the British 
fleet made an attack on Fort Mifflin, on Mud Island. This place they besieged until 
the 15th of November, when the fortress becoming untenable was set on fire and the 
garrison escaped to Fort Mercer. On the 20th of the month this place also was aban- 
doned to the British, and General Howe at last obtained full control of the Delaware. 

Atter the unsuccessful attack on Gennantown Washington withdrew beyond the 
Schuylkill to a place called White Marsh and there established his headquarters. The 
patriots began at this time to suffer for both food and clothing. The colonies failed to 
send f.)r\vard the requisite supplies for the support of the annyJ Meanwhile the British, 
though winter had set in, laid a plan to surprise Washington in his camp and over- 
whelm him and his forces. General Howe held a council of war on the evening of the 
2d of December at the house of Lydia Darrah, in Philadelphia, and there the arrange- 
mcuLs were made to march out and attack the Americans. But Mrs. Darrah, who 
overiieard the plans of Howe, left the city on pretence of going to the mill, rode to 




J 



EPOCH OF INDEPENDENCE. 217 

the American lines and gave the alarm. When, on the morning of the 4th, the British 
approached the American camp at White Marsh they found the cannon mounted and 
the patriots in order of battle. The preparation was so complete that Howe did not 
dare to make the attack. For four days he manoeuvred in the hope of striking a blow, 
but was then obliged to march back without an action to Philadelphia. 
SUFFERINGS OF WASHINGTON'S ARMY AT VALLEY FORGE. 
Winter now set in severely, and Washington established his quarters at a place called 
Valley Forge, on the right bank of the Schuylkill. But the situation was desperate. The 
supplies were short Thousands of the soldiers had no shoes, and in many cases the frozen 
ground was marked with their bloody footprints. Log cabins were hastily built for pro- 
tection, and everything was done that could be done to secure the comfort of the suffering 
patriots ; but it was a long, dreary winter. These were perhaps the darkest days of Wash- 
ington's life. There was a reaction in the public mind against him and his management 
of the patriot cause. This unjust sentiment found its way into Congress, and that body in 
a measure abandoned him. The success of the Army of the North under Gates was 
invidiously compared with the reverses of the Army of the South. Many men high in 

military and civil station left the great leader unsupported ; 
but the army remained true in its allegiance. The clouds at 
length began to break and the nation's confidence in the chief- 
tain became stronger than ever. At the close of the year, 
however, the cause of independence was still obscured with 
clouds and thick darkness. 

IMention has already been made of the friendliness of 
France to the new republic. Never were sympathy and sup- 






' \ m'. 




ENCAMPMENT AT VALLEY FORGB. po^t morc nccdcd. From the outbreak of the war the Ameri- 
cans, knowing the traditional enmity existing between the French and the English, had 
hoped for an alliance with the fonner against the latter. As early as November, 1776, 
Silas Deane, of Connecticut, had been appointed commissioner of the United States to 
the court of Louis XVL The French King was then in the third year of his reign ; 
it was known that he desired the success of the American cause, and was willing, 
at least by indirection, to contribute to that result. On the arrival of Deane at Ver- 
sailles he succeeded in making a secret arrangement with the French ministry for the 
supply of the Americans with materials for carrjing on the war. In the autumn of 
1777 a ship laden with two hundred thousand dollars' worth of arms, ammunition and 
specie was sent to America. Almost as valuable as this large contribution to the 
military resources of the patriots was the Baron Frederick William of Steuben, who 
came in the same ship with the French supplies, and was soon afterwards commiss- 
ioned by Congress as inspector-general of the anny. In this relation he was of the 
greatest service to the cause, for he was a man not only of great abilities, but of wide 
experience in the management and supply of militar}' forces. 

Soon after the departure of Deane, Arthur Lee and Benjamin Franklin were appointed 
by Congress to go to Paris, and if possible to negotiate a treaty of alliance with the French 
King. They reached their destination in December of 1776 ; but the reader will recall the 
low ebb of fortune to which the American cause at that time had fallen. For this reason 
Louis XVI. and his ministers were wary of making a treaty with what appeared to be a 
Slinking State. Nevertheless, on account of their hatred of Great Britain they continued 
to give secret encouragement to the colonies. An open treat)' with the Americans would 



2l8 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



be equivalent to a war with England, and that the French court was at this time slow to 
undertake ; but private sympathy and secret aid to the Americans could be given without 
imperiling the general peace of Western Europe. 

FRANKLIN NEGOTIATES AN ALLIANCE WITH FRANCE. 

It was in this peculiar juncture of affairs and condition of opinion and policy that the 
genius of Dr. Franklin shone with a peculiar lustre. At the gay court of Louis XVI. he 
appeared as the representative of his countr>'. His gigantic intellect, his reputation in 
science and his personal manners soon won for him at the French capital an immense 
reputation. His wit and genial humor made him admired ; his humanity and courteous 
bearing commanded universal respect ; his patience and perseverance gave him final 
success. He became at length the idol of the French people. During the whole of 1777 
he remained at Paris and Versailles, leaving nothing undone that might conduce to the 
cause of his countr}'. 

At last came the news of Burgoyne's surrender. Franklin was enabled to infonn the 
French ministers that a powerful British array had been conquered and captured by the 

colonists without aid 
from abroad. This 
marked success of the 
American anns and 
the influence of the 
French minister of 
finance, Beaumarchais, 
who for several years 
had been in corre- 
spondence with the 
American agents 
abroad, induced the 
King to accept the 
proposed alliance with 
the colonies. On the 
6th of Febniar}', 1778, 
a treaty was c o n - 
eluded. France acknowledged the independence of 
the United States, and entered into relations of friend- 
ship with the new nation. The event was of vast 
moment, for it presaged the final success of the 
American cause. It was perceived at a glance through- 
out the civilized world that France had virtually taken up the gauntlet, and that Great 
Britain, in the multitude of her enemies, must ultimately yield, at least to the extent 
of acknowledging tlie independence of the American States. 

This work, so far as human agency was concerned, was attributable to Benjamin 
Franklin. He was the author of the treaty — first compact between the new United States 
and a foreign nation. Franklin was at this time already an old man, according to the law 
of nature. He was in his seventy-third year, having been born in Boston on the 17th of 
January, 1706. His father was a manufacturer of soap and candles. At the age of twelve 
the boy Benjamin was apprenticed to his elder brother to learn the art of printing. In 
1723 he went to Philadelphia, entered a printing office, and soon rose to distinction. He 




EPOCH OF INDEPENDENCE. 219 

visited England, resided a while in London, returned to Philadelphia, founded the first 
circulating library in America, edited Poor Richard'' s Almanac — wisest book of proverbs 
since the days of Solomon ; became a man of science ; discovered the identity of electricity 
and lightning ; prepared a constitution for the united colonies as early as 1755 ; espoused 
the patriot cause ; became the greatest representative of his country abroad, and devoted 
his old age to perfecting the American Union. To the end of days Benjamin Franklin 
will perhaps remain the most typical American of all his countrymen. Yet great as he was, 
his grave in Philadelphia is marked by nothing more than a simple slab of stone, from 
which the inscription is almost effaced. 

Congress made haste to ratify the advantageous treaty with France. Already a month 
previously, namely, in April, 1778, a French fleet under Count d'Estaing had been 
despatched to America. Both France and Great Britain immediately prepared for war on 
an extended scale. At this juncture Great Britain would gladly have made peace with the 
Americans on any terms consistent with their return to allegiance and loyalty to the English 
crown. The King himself became willing to treat with his American subjects. Lord 
North, now at the head of the ministry, brought forward two bills in which everything 
which the colonists had claimed was conceded. The bills were passed by Parliament 
and the King gave his assent. Commissioners were sent to America, but Congress 
courageously informed them that an acknowledgment of the independence of the United 
States was a necessary preliminary to negotiations. Nothing short of that would now be 
accepted by the new Republic. It thus happened that the obstinacy of George III. and 
his ministers during the last four years had conduced to the ultimate success of the 
American struggle for independence and to the enlargement of the civil liberties of mankind. 

IN HOT PURSUIT OF THE BRITISH. 

Owing to these attempted negotiations, military operations were not opened with 
alacrity in the spring of 1778. The British army remained at Philadelphia until the month 
of June. The fleet of Admiral Howe lay in the Delaware. When it was learned, however, 
that the squadron of Count d'Estaing had sailed for America, Admiral Howe withdrew 
from his position in support of his brother in Philadelphia and sailed for New York. It 
was deemed more important that the latter city should be held against a possible attack of 
the French, but general Howe was itnwilling to remain in Philadelphia without the support 
of his fleet. Accordingly, on the i8th of June, he evacuated the city and began to make 
his way across New Jersey. Washington at once marched into the metropolis and then 
followed the retiring British. 

At Monmouth the enemy was overtaken on the 27th of June. On the following 
morning General Lee was ordered to make the attack. The American cavalry, under 
Lafayette, leading the charge, was at first driven back by Comwallis. General Lee, instead of 
supporting Lafayette, ordered his line to retire to a stronger position. It appears that Lee's 
troops mistook the nature of the order and began a confused retreat. Washington was by 
this time at hand in person. He met the fugitives, rallied them and administered a severe 
rebuke to Lee. The battle then continued in a desultory and indecisive manner till night- 
fall. Such was the extreme heat that almost as many soldiers were prostrated thereby as 
fell in the fight. But Washington anxiously waited for the morning, still hoping for a 
decisive victor}^ During the night, however, the British forces under direction of Sir 
Henry Clinton were withdrawn and escaped unperceived from the American front. 

The loss of the Americans in the battle of Monmouth was two hundred and twenty- 
seven ; that of the enemy much greater. The British left nearly three hundred dead oa 



220 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



the field. On the day after the battle Washington received an insulting letter from General 
Lee demanding an apolog)\ Washington replied severely that his language had been 
warranted by the circumstances. Lee answered in a still more offensive manner and 
was tiicreupon arrested. He was tried by court-martial and dismissed under reprimand for 
one j'ear. He never reentered the ser\'ice and did not live to witness the achie\ement of 
independence. A thrilling and heroic incident of this battle may be thus briefly told, 
to the glorj' of American womanhood. A brave woman named Mar)' Pitcher had accom- 
panied her husband, a young artillerj-man, through the many privations of several cam- 
paigns and had distinguished herself at Fort Clinton. During the engagement at 
Monmouth she employed her ser\'ices in bringing water from a spring near the place 
where the battery was planted, and in refreshing with cool draughts the powder-blackened 
men who wen 
handling tlu 
field guns. 
While return- 
ing with a /. 
bucket filled 
with water sin 
saw her hus- 
band fall dead 
as he was charg- 
ing a gun. In 
another instant, 
fired with a pa- 
triotic enthusi- 
asm that repres- 
sed her grief, 
she seized tlu- 
rammer an^ 
discharged wit 
ability and ti 
delity thedutic> 
which her hus- 
band had per- 
fonned ; and in 
this station she 

resolutely re- the American cavalry charge at monmouth. 

mained until the close of the battle. She was presented to Washington, who rewarded her 
with a sergeant's commission, and she was then retired on half pay for life. 

After Monmouth the British forces made their way to New York. Washington followed, 
and took up his headquarters at Wliite Plains. Meanwhile the fleet of Count d'Estaing 
arrived, and attempted to attack the British squadron in New York harbor. But the bar 
at the entrance prevented the passage of his vessels. D'Estaing hereupon withdrew and 
made a descent on Rhode Island. General Sullivan was .sent to cooperate with D'Estaing 
in an attack on Newport. The American forces were brought into position, and on the 
9th of Augiist Sullivan informed his ally of his readiness for battle on the next day. On 
that morning, however, the fleet of Admiral Howe came in sight and D'Estaing sailed out 




EPOCH OF INDEPENDENCE. 221 

to give battle to that enemy on his own element. But just as the two squadrons were 
about to begin a naval battle a storm arose by which the fleets were parted and both greatly 
damaged. D' Estaing sailed for Boston for repairs and Howe returned to New York. 

As for General Sullivan, he undertook a siege of Newport without the cooperation 
of the French fleet, but was soon obliged to withdraw. The British followed in pursuit 
jmd a battle was fought in which the enemy was worsted, with a loss of two hundred and 
sixty men. On the following night Sullivan made good his withdrawal from the island 
and General Clinton returned to New York. 

OUTRAGES BY GUERRILLAS AND /NDIANS. 

At this time the command of all the British naval forces operating on the American 
coasts was given to Admiral Byron. The year 1778 was noted for many irregular and 
desultory episodes of warfare not very creditable to those engaged, and having but little 
general effect upon the progress of the Revolution. Early in October a band of guerrillas 
led by Colonel Ferguson burned the American ships at Little Egg Harbor. Already in 
the preceeding July the Tory, Major John Butler, commanding sixteen hundred loyalists, 
Canadians and Indians marched into the Valley of Wyoming, Pennsylvania. The settle- 
ment was defenceless. On the approach of the Tories and savages, a few militia, old men 
and boys, rallied to protect their homes. A battle was fought, and the patriots without 
discipline or efficient command were routed. The fugitives fled into a rude fort which 
they had erected and which was soon crowded not only with the militia, but with the 
women and children of the settlement. Honorable terms were promised by Butler, and 
the garrison capitulated. On the 5th of July the gates were opened and the Canadians 
entered followed by the Indians. The latter and some of the former immediately began to 
plunder and kill. The passion of butcher}' rose with the work and nearly all the prisoners 
fell under the hatchet and the scalping-knife. 

Four months later a similar massacre occurred at Cherry Valley, New York. The 
invaders in this instance were led by the celebrated Joseph Brandt, the half-breed chief of 
the Mohawks, and by Walter Butler, a son of Mayor John Butler. The people of Cherry 
Valley were driven from their homes without mercy. Women and children were toma- 
hawked and scalped, and forty prisoners carried into captivity by the Indians. 

To avenge these outrages, an expedition was organized and sent against the villages in 
the Onondaga Valley. The commanders were Colonels Gansevoort and Van Schaick. The 
Americans made their way unexpectedly into the Indian country. It chanced that a fog 
concealed the approach of the Whites until they were already in the Indian villages. Three 
of these were destroyed. A number of warriors were killed, and thirty-three taken prisoners. 
Most of the savage inhabitants fled away. The horses and cattle were slaughtered, and in 
six days the expedition returned to Fort Schuyler without having lost a man. Thus in 
their turn the Red men were made to feel the terrors of lawless war. 

The year was marked by more than a score of thrilling episodes in which brave fron- 
tiersmen either perished in defence of their homes or exhibited extraordinary courage in 
successful efforts to beat back the savages. Among the more distinguished heroes of this 
period were the Bradys and Wetzels, whose valorous deeds have served to perpetuate their 
names until the annals that describe the redemption of America from barbarism are no 
longer printed. The Bradys were singularly marked as victims of Indian savagery. Cap- 
tain John Brady, a brave pioneer, was assassinated by three Indians as he was riding alonjf 
a highway. James, the sou of John Brady, with three companions, was set upon by a con^ 



222 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



pany of Indians; his comrades deserted at the first signs of danger, but he stood bis 
groiuid and disdaining all overtures for surrender, fought with his back to a tree until ten 
bullets from g^ins of his enemies extinguished his brave life. 

An elder brother, named Samuel, swore to avenge the death of James and thereafter 
devoted many years to satisfying his vengeance, in which service he rose to the verj- pinna- 
cle of fame as a scout of unexampled daring, who passed through perils greater and more 
■umerous perhaps than beset any other pioneer. 

HEROISM OF THE WETZELS. 

Equally famous as the Bradys were the Wetzel brothers, whose dashing daring has 
been made the subject of many a thrilling tale of adventure with Indians. The father, 
John Wetzel, an honest ploddin^^ 
Dutchman, built a cabin in tlu 
Ohio valley, but he had scarceh 
become settled and began clear- 
ing some of his ground when 
one day while working in tlu 
woods he was pitilessly murdered 
by lurking savages. Though a 
man indisposed to strife him- 
self he was father to five sons 
who became desperadoes in 
tlieir unappeasable thirst for 
a bloody vengeance. The eldest 
of these, named Martin, was 
80on after made captive by a 
band of Indians to whose life he 
adapted himself in order the 
more effectually to satisfy his de- 
sire for vengeance. While thus 
living on apparently amiable 
tenns with the tribe into which 
he was adopted he contrived to 
kill no lesj than twenty before 
his criminal intents were dis- 
covered, and by this time he had 
retreated and was a leader of 
the settlers. Each of the 
brothers in turn became a 
sleuth-litound upon the tracks 
of the Indians, slaying at every 
opportunity and ever demand- 
ing the blood of atonement for their father's slaughter. 

The youngest of the Wetzels was Lewis and he was the most implacable oi the 
five. So great was his thirst for vengeance that when in 1 7 87-8S efforts were made by 
General Hannar to make a treaty of peace with the Indians, Lewis opposed such temporiz- 
ing measures and \vith many other settlers preferred to have the war go on until the savages 
were extenninated. When, therefore, a council was called at Fort Harmar, Wetzel waylaid 




THE DEATH OF JAMES BRADY. 



EPOCH OF INDEPENDENCE. 



223 



and shot an Indian who was on the way to the treaty ground. This act created such Intense 
indignation that General Harmar set a price upon Wetzel's head, which incentive prompted 
a company of soldiers to set out upon his tracks and after a week's pursuit they arrested 
him while he was sleeping in the house of a friend. Securing him with heavy manacle* 
they carried the desperate Indian hunter back to the fort, where he was kept under a close 
guard for some weeks. At length relaxing somewhat his severity under specious promises 
of the prisoner General Hannar permitted Lewis to exercise about the fort, but always imder 
strict surveillance of two or more guards and never without handcuffs upon his wrist On 

one occasion, however, Wetzel 
seized the small opportunity 
offered for his escape and made 
a surprising dash for liberty. 
The giiards were quick to 
detect his bold manoeuvre and 
eacli fired at the fugitive but 
without effect Running like 
a deer Wetzel plunged into a 
thicket, baffled all pursuit and 
managed to cross the Ohi(\ 
where he met a friend who 
[ relieved him of his fetters and 
he returned to his old vocation 
of killing Indians. Subse- 
quently he was again arrested, 
but the settlers rallied to his 
defence and threatened an in- 
surrection if he was not re- 
leased. Under this pressure 
the court granted a writ of 
\ habeas corpus and again he 
was free. He was the hero of 
many escapades thereaftez 
!j which were by no mean* 
[j creditable to his reputation a» 
an Indian fighter, but desper- 
I ado as he was, Lewis Wetz«l 
' died a natural death at Wheel- 
ing in the summer of 1808. 
By the autumn of the 
jrear 1779 the naval contest had drifted somewhat abroad. On the 3d of November, 
Count D'Estaing's fleet sailed for the West Indies. In December, Admiral Byron 
finding little to occupy his restless fancy and ambitions at New York, sailed away 
to try the fortunes of war on the high seas. As to movements by land, Colonel 
Campbell, with two thousand men, was sent by General Clinton for the conquest of Georgia. 
On the 29th of December the expedition reached Savannah. Georgia was by much the 
weakest of all the colonies. Savannah was defended by a garrison of eight hundred men under 
command of General Robert Howe. The British attacked it and the Americans were soca* 




THB ESCAPE OF LEWIS WETZEL. 



224 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

driven out of the city. The patriots retreated into South Carolina, and found refugee at 
Charlestou. This, however, proved to be the only real conquest made by the British during 
the year — a conquest sufficiently insijjnificant. 

REVERSES TO THE AMERICAN CAUSE. 

The American Army went into winter-quarters for 1 778-' 79 at Middle Brook, New 
Jersey. There was much discouragement, much discontent among the patriot soldiers, for 
they were neither paid nor fed. Time and again the personal influence of Washington was 
required to prevent a general mutiny. In February' of 1779 Governor Trj'on, of New York, 
a Torj' of the Tories, marched with fifteen hundred men against the salt-works at Horse 
Neck, Connecticut. Old General Putnan rallied the militia of the countr>', and made a 
brave defence; but the Americans were outflanked by the enemy and obliged to fly. It was 
here that General Putnam, when about to be overtaken, spurred his horse down a precipice 
and escaped. 

With the opening of spring General Sir Henry Clinton looked around for a field of 
operations. In the latter part of May he sent an army up the Hudson to Stony Point, a 
fortress commanding the river. The garrison, unable to resist the overwhelming forces of 
tlie British, made good their escape from the fortifications. On the 1st of June, the British 
also captured Verplancks Point, on the opposite side of the Hudson. In July, Governor 
Tryon, with twenty-six hundred Hessians and Tories, made a sudden descent on New 
Haven, Connecticut, and compelled a surrender. The towns of East Haven and Fairfield 
were set on fire and burned to ashes. One of the traditions of the day nms to the eflfect 
that, at Norwalk, Tr>'on having ordered the burning of the village, sat in a rocking-chair on 
a neighboring hill and laughed heartily at the scene. 

It was much to the disadvantage of the Americans that Stony Point, commanding the 
central Hudson, should be held by the British. Washington accordingly planned its recap- 
ture from the enemy. To this work he assigned General Anthony Wayne. That ofl^icer on 
the 15th of July, 1779, marched against the stronghold, and in the evening halted near the 
fort. His movements had not been discovered by the British. Wayne was enabled to make 
his plan of assault and issue his orders without attracting the attention of the enemy's 
pickets, who were presently caught and gagged in the darkness. Everything was conducted 
in silence. The muskets of the Americans were unloaded and the bayonets fixed. Not a 
gim was to be fired. Wayne waited until a little after midnight before ordering the assault 
The patriots made the charge with great spirit, and scaled the ramparts. The British find- 
ing themselves between two lines of closing bayonets, cried out for quarter. Sixty-three of 
the enemy fell. The remaining five hundred and forty-three were taken prisoners. Of the 
Americans only fifteen were killed and eighty-three wounded. General Wayne, having 
secured the ordnance and stores, destroyed the fort and marched off with his prisoners. 

On the i8tli of July, Major Lee with a detachment of patriots captured the British gar- 
rison at Jersey City. On the 25th of the month a fleet was sent to attack a post which the 
enemy had established at the mouth of the Penobscot The .squadron reached its destina- 
tion, blockaded the mouth of the river, and began a siege. On the 13th of August, how- 
ever, a British squadron appeared, superior in number of vessels and equipment, and falling 
upon the American fleet destroyed or captured the whole. 

SUCCESSES AND REVERSES. 

In the same summer it was found necessary' to organize a campaign against the Indians 
in the country of the Susquehanna. An expedition of six hundred men was equipped and 
placed under command of Generals Sullivan and James Clinton. The American force 



EPOCH OF INDEPENDENCE. 



225 



marched first against the savages and Tories who had fortified themselves at Elmira. This 
place was besieged, and on the 29th of August the enemy was routed from his stronghold 
and scattered in all directions. The country between the upper Susquehanna and the 
Genesee was then laid waste by the patriots, who destroyed forty Indian towns and villages 
before the campaign was ended. 

On the part of the enemy some successes were achieved. On the 9th of January, 1779, 
a British force under General Prevost attacked and captured Fort Sunbury, on St Cathe- 
rine's Sound. Prevost was then assigned to the command of the British army in the south. 
A force of two thousand regulars and loyalists was despatched from Savannah for the cap- 
ture of Augusta. On the 29th of January, the latter city was taken with but little resist- 
ance. In these days the southern colonies were greatly plagued by the Tory partisans of 
Great Britain, who organized in guerilla bands against their own countrymen. One of 
these companies under Colonel Bo}d, advancing from the country districts to join the 

British at Augusta, was attacked 
and routed by patriots under 
Colonel Anderson, On the 14th 
of February, the same body was 
again defeated by Colonel Andrew 
Pickens. Boyd and several of 
his men were killed, seventy-five 
others were captured, and five of 
the leading Tories hanged. 

In this manner the western 
half of Georgia was quickly 
recovered by the patriots. Mean- 
while a regular expedition under 
General Ashe had been sent out 
from Charleston to intercept the 
enemy. On the 25th of February, 
the Americans crossed the Savannah and began 
pursuit of the British Colonel Campbell and his 
band as far as Brier 'Creek. At this stream the 
patriots halted, and, encamping with incaution, 
were surrounded by the British under General 
Prevost. A battle was fought on the 3d of March, and the Americans in total rout wert 
driven in scattered bands into the swamps. By this victory of the British, Georgia was 
again prostrated and a royal government was established over the State. 

The defeat of General Ashe was the dispersion, not the capture, of his division. The 
Americans soon rallied, and within a month General Lincoln, commandant of Charleston, 
was able to take the field with five thousand men. He proceeded up the Savannah River 
in the direction of Augusta ; but at the sams time his antagonist, General Prevost, crossed 
that stream and marched rapidly against Charleston. General Lincoln was obliged to turn 
back, and the British soon made a hasty retreat. The Americans followed, overtook the 
enemy at a place called Stone Ferry, ten miles west of Charleston, and attacked but were 
repulsed with considerable losses. Prevost, however, avoided battle, and fell back to 
Savannah. From June until September military operations were suspended, for the season 
was one of intense heat, and neither General chose to follow or engage the other. 
15 




DEFEAT OF THE AMERICANS AT BRIER CREEK. 



226 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 




UNSUCCESSFUL ATTACK ON SAVANNAH. 

It was at this juncture of affairs that Count D'Estain<j, who had been cruising with the 
French lleet in the West Indies, anived at Charleston to co6perate with General Lincoln in 
tlie reduction of Savannah. Discovering the intent of the Americans, Prevost withdrew 
his forces within the defences of that city and stood at bay. On the i2th of September the 
French, numbering six thousand, effected a landing near Savannah and advanced to the 
siege. General Lincoln, however, was slow in arriving before the city. On the i6th 
D'Estaing, acting without the assistance of the Americans, demanded a surrender; but 
Prevost answered with defiance. A siege was begun and 
pressed with vigor. The city was constantly bombarded, 
but the defences were strong and were little injured. On 
the 23d of September Lincoln arrived, and D'Estaing 
entered into cooperation for the reduction of the city. 
At length he notified the American commander that the 
place nmst be taken by assault, and the morning of the 9th 
of October was named as the time for the hazardous attack. 

Before sunrise on 
that morning tlie allied 
French and Americans 
moved forward against 
the British redoubts. At 
one time it seemed that 
tlie works would be 
carried, for the attack 
was made with great 
spirit and determination. 
The flags of Carolina and 
France were planted on 
the parapet, but they 
were soon hurled down 
by the British. It was 
in the melee along the 
walls that Sergeant Jas- 
per, the hero of Fort 
Moultrie, was killed. 
The allitd columns were 
driven back with fearful 

losse.'^ Count Pulaski was stmck with a grapeshot and borne d>-ing from the field. 
D'Estaing retired on board the fleet ; Lincoln retreated to Charleston ; and Savannah 
remained in the hands of the British. 

THE HEROISM OF PAUL JONES. 

It was on the 23d of September in this year that Commodore John Paul Jones, cruis- 
ing off the coast of Scotland \v:th a fleet of French and American vessels, fell in with a 
British squadron, and a bloody and famous battle ensued. The Serapis, a British frigate 
of forty-four guns, engaged the Bon Homme Richard, the flag-ship of Paul Jones, in a 
deadly encounter. After a terrific cannonade the two ships came within musket-shot, and 
each was riddled by the fire of the other. At last the ships were lashed together. The 



EPOCH OF INDEPENDENCE. 



227 



Americans, or rather the crew of the Bon Homme Richard (for that crew was made up of 
many nationalities) boarded the Serapis^ and the latter was obliged in blood and fire and 
ruin to strike her colors. Alreadj', however, the Bon Homme Richard had become 
unmanageable and was in a sinking condition. Jones hastily transferred his men to the 
conquered vessel, and his own ship went down. Of the three hundred and seventy-five 
men who composed Paul Jones's crew three hundred were either killed or wounded. 

Thus indecisively and with certain heroic episodes ended the year 1779. The colonies 
had not yet won their independence. The French alliance, sad to say, had brought but 

little seeming benefit. The national treasury was 
bankrupt. The patriots of the army were poorly 
fed and were paid for the most part with unkept 
promises. Nor was there any weakening on the part 
of the enemy. Great Britain still supported the 
war with unabated vigor. True, her anger had now 
been diverted somewhat from the colonies to her 
ancient rival France ; but Parliament and the King 
were still for war and the subjugation of America. 
The lev}^ of sailors and soldiers now made amounted 
to a hundred and twenty thousand, while the ex- 
penses of the war department were raised to twenty 
million pounds sterling. The cloud of war rested 
ominously over our thirteen struggling States and the day of independence still seemed 
far away. 

The winter of 1779-80 Washington passed at his headquarters near Morristown while 
the main body of his army lay encamped on the southern slope of Kemball mountain, 
sufficiently near to be called into immediate service iii case of necessity'. The winter was 
so excessively severe as to retard operations, and was spent in no greater activity than 
watching the British on Staten Island and in foraging for provisions, for the army was so 
inadequately provided that self-preser\'ation compelled a resort to marauding levies upon 
surrounding barnyards. The cold and privations were so great that the scenes at Valley 
Forge were reenacted, and but for the influence which Washington exerted his army would 
QO doubt have mutinied, as it was more than once upon the eve of doing. 




WASHINGTON'S HEADQUARTERS AT 
MORRISTOWN. 




CHAPTER XVI. 



^>/y 



ultimate 



WESTERN EPISODES OF THE WAR. 

URIXG the progress of the Revolution many circum- 
stances showed that the future results of the 
conflict were to be felt beyond the Alleghenies 
and to the Father of Waters. At this period, 
more than ever before, adventnre began to 
find the gaps of the mountains and to set a 
resolute face toward the setting sun. More 
generally, we may say, that the progress of 
the Revolution assumed a Continental sig- 
nificance. While the main drama was enacting 
^ j jl Ap^ in the central part of the Old Thirteen 

^^'^V*' ) '' ~^r '»'^ States, between the Hudson and the Sa- 

\annah, certain important episodes occurred 
in the then Far West- —episodes of which 
little more than the rnmor was heard near the 
principal scene of conflict. We shall in this 
place insert a brief chapter narrating tlie 
■ "^^ ' >^^ ^^^'° leading exploits of this kind, beginning 

in personal heroism and resulting in the 

addition of a large and important area to the Union. 




^^-^^S-"^ 



y 



EXPLOITS OF DANIEL BOONE. 

Tlie first of tiiese events was the colonization of Kentucky, the defense of that 
territory against the natives, and its final conquest by the whites. So far as personal 
agency was concerned, this was the result of the adventures of the great frontiersman 
Daniel Koone. The life and character of this remarkable personage were unique. He was 
without doubt the greatest of his kind. He was nature's man, and though from one point 
of \iew he may be said to have contemned civilization, from another, he made a way for it. 
His character was highly typical, and his influence diffused itself through all the 2)rimiti\e 
and border life of the Middle Western States. 

lioone was a native of the county of lUicks, Pennsylvania. He was born on the nth 
of February, 1735. His ancestors came out of Flxeter, FZngland, and arriving in America 
joined the society of F'riends. When young Daniel was thirteen years of age, his father 
removed to Hohnan's F'ord, on tlic Yadkin, in Xortli Carolina. In this frontier situation 
but little education could be acquired. Daniel Boone grew up with no attainments beyond 
the ability to read and write. He took to tlie solitudes of the forest, and gained, while he 
was >et young, such skill in woodcraft as few men have ever possessed. When he was 
twenty years of age he married Rebecca Br>an, and made a backwoods home of his own. 
But it was not long until approaching civilization vexed him even in that solitary region, 
and leaving his family he sought the untrodden wilds of Kentucky. 



EPOCH OF INDEPENDENCE. 



229 



The territory so-called was at that time only the mrknown extension of Virginia 
beyond the mountains. It was in May, 1769, that Boone set out into the unbroken regions 
of the West. He was alone. How he lived none might ever know. His native wit stood 
him in hand, and his experience enabled him to baffle the Indians. He made himself 
acquainted with some of the better parts of Kentucky, and was one of Lord Dunmore's 
principal agents in the conduct of the petty conflict called Dunmore's War. Boone finally 
selected as the nucleus of a future settlement the left bank of the Kentucky River, and 
there constructed a fort on the site of the town which to this day bears the name of 
Boonesborough. 

The reader will have in mind the relations that had existed between the frontiersmen 
of France and England in the New World. The French and Indian War had been fought, 
to the general advantage of the English 
interest. French settlements, however, re- 
mained in the West, and in these there was 
ill-concealed hostility to the English and 
the Americans. The Indians everywhere 
were the friends of the French. This situa- 
tion made adventure of white colonists into 
the West extremely hazardous. No fron- 
tiersman of American or English descent 
was safe in these regions. There was petty 
warfare along the whole border. The 
building of Boone's Fort aroused the ani- 
mosity of the Indians, and the backwoods 
settlers had ever their lives in their hands. 

In the meantime a company of thirty 
Garolinians came out to Boonesborottgh. 
Among these was the wife of the pioneer. 
But before the settlers arrived Boone had 
been taken prisoner by the Indians. At a 
place known as Salt Lick, about a hundred 
miles north of the fort, he and an armed 
party, endeavoring to obtain a supj^ly of 
salt, were attacked by more than a hundred 
warriors, under command of two French 
officers. Boone and his men were taken 
and carried away to Old Chillicothe. After- daniei. boone. 

ward they were transferred to Detroit. At length twenty-seven of the prisoners were 
ransomed ; but Boone himself was detained by Blackfish, chief of the Shawnees, and was 
adopted into that great man's family. The hair of the paleface was plucked out except the 
warlock on the top. He was put into Indian garb, painted a la mode, and obliged to submit 
to several absurd and a few jDainful ceremonies. 

In course of time the captive learned that a large force of warriors had been sent into 
Kentucky to capture Boonesborough and destroy the settlement. Believing that his wife 
and friends were there, he determined to risk all in an attempt to escape. He fled from the 
Indian town in the year 1778, and though pursued for the greater part of the intervening 
one hundred and sixty miles, he evaded the fleet-footed savages and reached Boonesborough. 




230 



PEOPLE'vS HISTORY OK THE UNITED STATES. 



Ik- found that lie had been fjiveii up for lost by his family, who had returned to their home in 
North Carolina. Thitlier lie followed them, and two years aftenvard brought them back to 
Kentucky. On the wa\ out, his brother, Squire Boone, was killed, and the leader himself 
narrowly escaped death. 

Arriving at Hooncsborough, he headed a force made up from various settlements that 
had now been established, and proceeded against the renegade Simon Girty, who had been 
devastating the country with a body of savages. Boone's force numbered a hundred and 
eighty-two; the enemy was greatly .superior in numbers. The Kentuckians came upon the 
foe in ambush at a place called Blue Licks, in Nicholas county, and there a disastrous battle 
was fought on the 19th of August. Oirt)' and his savages had formed an ambuscade, and 
the Kentuckians following the rash Major McGary instead of Boone, who had ad\ised 
caution, were caught in the trap, and were nearly all slain. Of Boone's two sons, one was 
killed and the other badlv wounded. 



Ill 



THE NEW STATE OF KENTUCKY. 

Already, before this time, tlie Kentucky pioneer had accompanied George Rogers Clarke 
his memorable expedition against Vincennes, of which an account will presently be given. 

After the Revolution 
a state of comparative 
quiet super\-eiied in Ken- 
tucky, and the territory 
was rapidly filled with im- 
migrants. Within eight 
)ears from the treaty of 
peace the commonwealth 
was organized, and on the 
4lh of February, 1791, was 
admitted into the Union. 
With this event Boone's 
historical career may be 
said to luu'e ended ; but 
liispcrsonal history in Ken- 
tucky and Missouri e.K- 
LAin Ri. ui- boo.Ni.. tended to the vear 1820. 

When the State was admitted and the new survey of lands iiiadL-, a defect was discovered in 
Boone's title to his estate, and society permitted the hero to lose in the contest for his 
rights. Hereupon he sought a new home at Point Pleasant, afterward the birthplace of 
Grant. Here he remained until 1795, when he removed to Mis.souri. When he was .seventv. 
five years of age, Kentucky righted the wrong by making him a grant of eight hundred aii'd 
fift>- acres of land. But he could not be .seduced from the frontier. 

When the hero was much beyond his eightieth year, he was still a keen-eved hunter; 
nor may we omit to mention the eccentricity of his domestic manners. He made his own 
coffin, kept It under his bed to the day of his death, and in that melancholv receptacle 
was buried beside his wife. His death occurred on the 26th of September, 1820, when he 
was 111 his eighty-sixlh year. Twenty-five years afterward Kentuckv, jealous of his fame, 
brought back the relics of her great backwoodsman, and made a new sepulture a few miles 




EPOCH OF INDEPENDENCE 



231 



torn Boonesboroiigh, and there his tomb remains a significant memorial of the courage 
and humanity by which the Central West was wrested from the savage races and transferred 
to the American Union. 

BOONE'S INTERNATIONAL FAME. 

The fame of Daniel Boone diffused itself through the greater part of the world. The 
life and exploits of the man were heard as far as Venice. The imagination of Byron was 
pervaded with the story of the American adventurer. The poet, in the year 1822, put into 
his longest production no less than seven stanzas of as fine personal analysis and poetic 




ESCAPE OF BOCNE. 



praise as may be found in his lordship's writings respecting any other character, excepting 
only Bonaparte. Out of this tribute the following stanzas are selected : 



" Of all men, saving Sylla the man-slayer, 
Who passes for in life and death most lucky, 

Of the great names, which in our faces stare. 
The General Boone, backwoodsman of Kentucky, 

Was happiest among mortals anywhere ; 
For killing nothing but a bear or buck, he 

Enjoyed the lonely, vigorous, harmless days 

Of his old age in wilds of deepest maze. 



232 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

" 'Tis true he shrank from men, even of his nation, 

Wlien they built up unto liis darling trees, — 
lie moved some hundred miles off, for a station 

Where there were fewer houses and more ease — 
Tlie inconvenience of civilization 

Is, that you neither can be pleased nor please;— 
But, where he met the individual man, 
He showed himself as kind as mortal can. 

" He was not all alone : around him grew 

A sylvan tribe of children of the chase, 
Whose young, unwakcn'd world was ever new 

Nor sword nor sorrow yet had left a trace 
On her unwrinkled brow, nor could you view 

A frown on nature's or on human face ; — 
The free-born forest found and kept them free, 
And fresh as is a torrent or a tree. 

" And tall and strong and swift of foot were thej', 

Beyond the dwarfing city's pale abortions. 
Because their thoughts had never been the prey 

Of care or gain : the green woods were their portions, 
No sinking s])irits told them they grew gray ; 

No fashion made them apes of her distortions ; 
Simple they were, not savage ; and their rifles, 
Though very true, were not yet used for trifles. 

" Motion was in their days, rest in their slumbers, 

And cheerfulness the handmaid of their toil ; 
Nor yet too many nor too few their numbers ; 

Corruption could not make their hearts her soil. 
The lust which stings, the splendor which encumbers. 

With the free foresters divide no spoil ; 
Serene, not .sullen, were the solitudes 
Of this unsighing people of the woods." 

GEORGE ROGERS CLARKE AND THE NORTHWEST EMPIRE. 

Still more important in historical results than the work of Boone was that of Georq;e 
Rofjcrs Clarke. The latter may almost be called the fonnrler of western empire. To him 
belongs the honor of having first divined the West. He saw its amazing possibilities and 
coming glory. The region of his vision included the five imperial States of Ohio, Indiana, 
Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin. It was his mission to make sure this vast region for the 
}oung Republic of the United States — to take it virtually from both France and England, 
and to transfer it to the new English-speaking America. 

It was while the riflemen of New England were confronting the British at Concord 
and Lexington that Clarke, with a single companion, descended the Ohio River from 
Pittsburgh to the Falls, at the present city of Louisville. But at that time not a white 
man's hut was to be seen on the voyage. Between the headwaters of the Ohio and the 
Mississippi, the red races, though agitated by the presence of foreigners, occupied the 
country as they had done since the prehistoric age. Beyond the ]\Ii.s.sissippi everything 
belonged to Spain. There lay that province of Louisiana v/hich we should, twenty years 
after Independence, gain by purchase. On the western bank of the inid-]\Iississippi lay the 
growing town of St. Louis, with its fortress and Spanish garrison looking across into the 
infinite prairies of the Illinois. 



EPOCH OF INDEPENDENCE. 233 

East of the Mississippi the country belonged nominally to Great Britain. A general 
view of the great region under consideration in the year 1778 would reveal a country of 
limitless extent occupied by Indian races, flecked here and there at great distances with 
French settlements, and these held by garrisons of British soldiers having their headquarters 
at Detroit. Other strategic points in the great field were Kaskaskia, Cahokia and Vincennes. 
All of these towns were French in their population, but were held by British garrisons. 
The latter were generally in collusion with the hostile Indians, and did not hesitate to incite 
them with bribes and the hope of pillage against the approaching American settlements. 

The year 1775 found Clarke a surveyor in Kentucky. In the next year he was a 
delegate to the Virginia convention. After that he obtained supplies from Virginia and 
brought them down the Ohio. In 1777 he commanded at Harrodsburg and beat back the 
Indians from an attack on that place. It was at this time that he conceived the design of 
capturing the British garrisons in the West and establishing American influence as far as 
the Mississippi. His commission from the Governor of Virginia gave him authority to 
proceed " to the defence of Kentucky " — no more. But this commission he thought 
sufficient, and with it he began a career of conquest which was destined to affect in a large 
and indeed unmeasured degree the future fortunes of his coimtry. 

The town of Kaskaskia was situated on the right bank of the river of the same name, 
in what is now the Egypt of Illinois, and near the confluence of that stream with the 
^lississippi. Cahokia was seventy miles higher up the great river, nearly opposite St. 
Louis. The British post on one side of the Mississippi and the Spanish fort of St. Louis 
on the other looked over at each other in a semi-friendly way, awaiting the event. More 
important was Vincennes, a hundred and fifty miles distant, on the opposite border of 
Illinois. The town lay on the left bank of the Wabash, at the crossing of the parallel 
of thirty-eight degrees and forty minutes. The place was more populous than the other 
two outposts, and the position more commanding. It was also more easily accessible from 
Detroit, which was the British base of supplies and conquest in the Northwest. 

It was a serious business for Major Clarke, with his handful of backwoodsmen, to under- 
take the capture of fortified stations held by British garrisons ; but with such men hazard 
whets ambition, and courage does the rest. In the early summer of 177S Major Clarke 
embarked his forces at Corn Island, in the Ohio, and dropped down to the mouth of the 
Tennessee. Here a few American and French hunters from the neighborhood of Kaskaskia 
joined the company. The expedition proceeded to a suitable point, and went ashore on the 
Illinois bank. The boats were concealed, and the march began in the direction of 
Kaskaskia. 

The commandant of that place was Philip Rocheblave. It was the evening of the 
second anniversary of the Declaration of Independence when the Americans came 
unperceived upon the town. The approach had not been discov^ered. Colonel Rocheblave 
was surprised in bed. Under the persuasive influence of Kentucky rifles he immediately 
surrendered. He and the garrison were made prisoners, and Rocheblave himself was sent 
in captivity to Williamsburg, Virginia. Not a life was lost ; but the event was as hazardous 
as it was important. 

His success by no means blinded Major Clarke to the remainder of his task. Cahokia 
must also be taken, or the British would rally and recover their ground. Cahokia was the 
more dangerous point of the two. From that place the British agents were wont to 
distribute arms and bribes to the Indians. Major Clarke made haste to dispatch Joseph 
Bowman, one of his four captains, with two companies of .soldiers, to take Cahokia. That 



34 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

place also was surprised. When the Kentucky hunters burst into the town, the P'rencli 
inhabitants were in great alarm ; but the Americans infor.ned them of the new alliance 
with France, and the fright of the people was changed to joy. The new American flag, 
now but one year old, was hailed with delight by the French as the British banner over 
the garrison went down. Clarke demanded an oath of allegiance, and then proceeded 
provisionally to organize the conquered territory under the name of the " County of 
Illinois." 

Meanwhile events of like importance, but less decisive, had occurred at Vinccnucs. 
That place had been dominated for several years by British garrisons. The foreign 
authority was never acceptable to the French citizens, and they awaited an opportunity for 
■deliverance. Major Clarke, knowing the situation, opened negotiations with a certain 
F'ather Gibanlt, at Vincennes, who was priest of the parish. He found the father most 
agreeable to his purpose, and through him incited the French of \'incennes to rise against 
the British garrison and pull down the English flag. This was done in Augnst of 1778, 
and tlie stars and stripes of the new republic raised instead. 

Tlie British authorities of Detroit, however, at once put forth their iiand to regain 
their lo.sscs. Governor Hamilton, the FvUglish commandant of Detroit, came down during 
the holidays of 1778-79, with a strong detachment of soldiers, and easily recaptured 
Vincennes from the French. He ensconced himself and garrison in the barracks, and 
things went on as before. 

The intelligence of this recapture was as a spark in the magazine of Major Clarke's 
belligerent nature. He immediateh- organized a company of a hundred and twenty of the 
picked men of his hunters, and on the 7th of February, 1779, began his march across 
Southern Illinois, in the direction of Vincennes. At the same time he dispatched Captain 
Rogers, with a boatload of forty men and two small cannon, to go around by water and 
ascend the Wabasli to the mouth of White River, where he purposed to finite his two 
■detachments. The boat of Captain Rogers might almost have gone along with the land 
forces, for it was the rainy season, and the drt)wned lands of Egypt were nearly all under 
water. It was perhaps the most important expedition ever made by wading ! The territory 
northwest of the river Ohio was taken from Great Britain and added to the American 
republic by the most aquatic campaign of history ! But if there were miles of water to be 
waded through, the powder was kept dry, and the fires in the hearts of the American 
hunters continued to burn. 

The march across Southern Illinois occupied eleven days of dreadful hardship and 
exposure. On the iSth of Febrnar\', Clarke and his command came in sight of \'incennes. 
The regiment was so insignificant in numbers and equipment that stratagem had to be 
substituted for force. The pioneer .soldiers blacked their faces with powder /// lerrorciu, 
crossed the Wabash in their boats, captured a citizen and sent him with audacity and loud 
bravado to Governor Hamilton, demanding instantaneous surrender. To Hamilton it might 
well seem that Clarke and his powder-smutted command had dropped out of the clouds. 
The British officer knew, moreover, that the French would all join the invaders at the first 
opportunity. 

But Hamilton was game, and refused to surrender. What, therefore, should Clarke do 
but get his two artillerj- popguns into position and go to blazing awa\- at the stockade. 
He marched his men back and forth till tliey were made to show the bigness of an anny. 
What with the damage done by his guns, and what with the belief which he inspired that 
a large force was ready to swallow the garri.son, he succeeded in bringing Hamilton to terms. 



EPOCH OF INDEPENDENCE. 



235 



A white flag was hoisted, and on the 24th of February the British garrison capitulated to 
the hundred and twent}- Kentucky hunters ! The British became captives ; Governor 
Hamilton was sent a prisoner to Virginia, and was for some time kept in jail under charge 
of having incited the savages against our pioneers. 

The audacious enterprise of General Clarke and his backwoods soldiers became the 
basis of the claim which the American ^^'onies, at length successful in their war with the 
mother countrj', set up to the vast territory out of which five of our most important States 
were to be constructed. It was out of this region that the so-called " Territory Northwest 
of the River Ohio " was subsequently organized, as if by logical deduction. Hence came 
the JefFersonian Ordinance of 1787 — which we shall hereafter consider — with its interdict 
of human slavery and its magnificent scheme for the education of the people. The brave 
conquest of 1779 made all this possible for posterity. The event was a hinge upon which 
the vast door swung open, letting into a splendid domain of virgin country the effulgence 
of a new civilization. 

George Rogers Clarke lived and died like other heroes. He fell in love with the 
daughter of the Spanish governor of St. Louis ; but discovering that her father was devoid 
of courage he renounced her forever, " lest he should become the father of a race of 
cowards ! " He continued a bachelor to the end of his da\s, and an adventurer always. 
Civilization hampered him. Many times employed in public service, his efforts brought 
but little reward or honor. He lost his lands and descended to poverty. He became an 
aged rheumatic and paralytic on Corn Island, from which he was removed by his sister to 
her home near Louisville. There he died on the i8th of February, 1818. He lived to see 
the admission of the great States of Ohio and Indiana into the Union, and the bill prepared 
for the admission of Illinois. He was buried in an obscure spot in the cemetery of Cave 
Hill, where a little square of marble with its initials " G. R. C." is all that marks his last 
resting-place. It is said that not six men in the United States know where to find his neg- 
lected grave 1 




CHAPTER XVII. 




1780. 



AMERICA WINS THE BATTLE. 

THOUGHTFUL reader of the history of the American 
Revolution can discern one significant lact, and that 
is that the British armies in America did not make 
war upon our fathers with their accustomed vigor. 
Was it possible that a lurking desire had per\'aded 
these annies of England that the Americans might 
•win the contest and go free? Certain it is that in 
many instances the war was waged in an easy-going 
and perfunctor>' way that might create the suspicion 
of an underlying and half-donnant sympathy of the 
British for the American cause. At any rate, there 
_^^ were seasons when the war almost ceased. This was 

true in the north during the greater part of the year 
Little was done on either side until midsummer. Early in July Admiral de 
Ternay, of the French navy, arrived at Newport with a large fleet and six thousand infantry 
under Count Rochambcau. 

The Americans were greatly elated at the coming of their allies. By this event the 
conflict suddenly loomed up to vaster proportions than ever, and this fact greatly strength- 
ened the faith of the patriots in their ultimate success. In September General Washington 
went to Dobb's Ferry, on the Hudson ; was there met in conference by Count Rochambeau, 
ind the plans of future campaigns were detennined. These events, however, were all of 
Importance that occurred in the north during the year 1780. 

Li the south, however, there was much desultory activity and the patriots suffered 
many and serious reverses. The southern colonies were weak. As we have said before 
they were also troubled with many nests of Tories, who for some reason not easily dis- 
coverable had chosen to turn upon their fellow-countrymen in a manner not ver>' different 
from treason. During the year South Carolina was at one time completely overrun by 
tlie enemy. Admiral Arbr.thnot came with a fleet of British ships and on the nth of 
Febntar>' anchored before Charleston. He had on board Sir Henr>' Clinton and an army 
of five thousand men. The city was feebly defended. General Lincoln, the commandant, 
had an effective force of no more than fourteen hundred. The British easily effected a 
hnding and marched up the right bank of Ashley River to a position from which they 
might advantageously attack the city. On the 7th of April General Lincoln was reinforced 
by a brigade of seven hundred Virginians. Two days afterwards Arbuthnot succeeded in 
passing the guns of Fort Moultrie and came within cannon shot of the city. 

THE SIEGE OF CHARLESTON. 

The siege of Charleston was now begun by land and water. General Lincoln sent oul 
a regiment of three hundred men under General Auger to scour the country and keep open 

(236) 



EPOCH OF INDEPENDENCE. 



237 








EutawSprmRs , ^ 



communications through the district north of Cooper River. Apprised of this movement. 
Colonel Tarleton, commanding the British cavalry, fell upon Auger's forces at a place 
called Monk's Comer and dispersed or captured the whole company. The city was thus 
hemmed in. Such was the disparity between the contending forces that from the first the 
defence seemed hopeless. In a short time the fortifications crumbled under the cannonade 
of the British batteries and General Lincoln, perceiving that the city would be carried by 

assault, agreed to a capitulation. On the 12th of 
May Charleston was surrendered to the enemy and 
General Ivincoln and his forces became prisoners 
of war. 

Meanwhile Colonel Tarleton had continued 
his ravages in the open countr}'. A few days 
before the surrender he surprised and dispersed 
a body of militia which had been gathered on the 
Santee. After the capture of Charleston three 
expeditions were sent into difierent parts of the 
State. The first of these was against the American 
post at the place called Ninety-Six. This station 
was captured by the enemy. A second detachment 
of British invaded the country of the Savannah. 
A third under Cornwallis crossed the Santee and 
captured Georgetown. Tarleton continued his 
depredations. At the head of seven hundred 
scEME OF OPERATIONS IN THE SOUTH, 1780-1. cavalr>' he fell upon the Americans under Colonel 
Buford and on the Waxhaw charged upon and dispersed them in all directions. 

By these successes the authority of Great Britain was nominally restored in South 
Carolina. For the present resistance seemed at an end. The patriots were beaten down 
and for the day remained in silence. Sir Henry Clinton and Arbuthnot, flattering themselves 
with the complete success of their expedition, now returned to New York, leaving Lords 
Cornwallis and Rawdon with a part of the British anny to hold the conquered territory. 

THE BRAVERY OF FRANCIS MARION. 

It was sooi- oeen, however, that the spirit of patriotism was not extinguished. A numbei 
of popular military heroes appeared on the scene and gained for themselves an imperishable 
fame as the champions of the people. Such in particular were Thomas Sumter and Francis 
Marion. These brave men came as the protectors of the State. They rallied the militia 
here and there and began an audacious partisan warfare. Exposed detachments of the 
British were suddenly attacked and swept off here and there as though an enemy had 
swooped upon them from the clouds. At a place called Rocky Mount, Colonel Sumter burst 
'upon a party of British dragoons who were glad to save themselves by flight On the 6th 
of August he attacked another detachment of the enemy at Hanging Rock, defeated them 
and made good his retreat. It was in this battle that young Andrew Jackson, then but 
thirteen years of age, began his career as a soldier. 

Marion's band consisted at first of twenty men and boys, white and black, half-clad, 
and poorly armed ; but the number increased and it was not long until the "Ragged Regi- 
ment " became a terror to the enemy. It was the policy of Marion and Sumter to keep 
their headquarters and places of refuge in almost inaccessible swamps. From these coverts 



238 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



they would suddenly issue forth by night or day and dart upon the enemy with such fury as 
to sweep all before them. There was no telling when or where the swords of these fearless 
leaders would fall. During the whole summer and autumn of 1780 Colonel Marion con- 
tinued to sweep around Coruwallis's positions, cutting his lines of communication and 
making incessant onsets upon exposed parties of tlie British. 

DEATH OF BARON DE KALB. 
Washington now sent forward General Gates into the Carolinas with the hope of pro- 
tecting the old North State and perhaps recovering the South. Learning of his advance, 
Coniwallis threw forward a large division of his forces under Lord Rawdon to Camden. 
Comwallis himself followed with reinforcements, while the Americans concentrated at 
Clennont not far away. The sequel showed that both Comwallis and Gates had fonned 
the design of attacking each other in the night. Each 
selected the evening of the I5tli of August for the forward 
movement Both accordingly broke up their camps, and 
the two annies met midway on Sander's Creek. Here a 
severe battle was fought, and the Americans were defeated 
with a loss of more than a thousand men. Here it was 
tliat the distinguished Baron de Kalb received his mortal 
wound. A review of the 
battle showed that the 
American forces had not 
been managed with either 
ability or courage. The 
reputation of Gates as a 
commander was blown 
away like chaff, and he 
was superseded by General 
Greene. 

In another part of the 
field the brave and dash- 
ing Carleton had avenged 
himself and the British 
cause by overtaking and 
routing the corps of 
Colonel Sumter at Fishing 
Creek. Sumter's division 
was put hors dn combat by rendezvous of marion and his men. 

this defeat; but Marion still remained abroad leading the patriot partisans and greatly 
harassing the enemy. On the 8tli of September tlie British advanced into North Carolina 
and on the 25th reached Charlotte .vithout molestation. From this station Comwallis 
i^nt out Colonel Ferguson with a mounted division of eleven hundred regulars and 
Tories to scour the country west of the River Catawba and to organize the loyalists of 
that section. 

Ferguson reached King's Mountain, where he encamped at his ease; but on the 7th 
of October he was suddenly attacked by a thousand riflemen led by the daring Colonel 
Campbell. A desperate fight here ensued. Ferguson was slain and three hundred of his 
men were killed or woun ied. The remaining eight hundred were forced into such close 




EPOCH OF INDEPENDENCE. 



239 



quarters that they threw down their arms and surrendered at discretion. Quarter was 
granted freely to the British ; but the patriot blood was hot, and ten of the leading Tory 
prisoners were condemned by a court-martial and hanged. 

After this brief account of affairs in the South we may pause to notice the civil cont 
dition of the American people at this juncture. The credit of the nation was rapidlj* 
sinking to the lowest ebb. Congress was obliged to resort to the free issuance of paper 
money. At first the Continental bills were received at par; but their value rapidly fell off 
until by the middle of 1780 they were scarcely worth two cents to the dollar. Business 
was paralyzed for the want of an efficient currency. In the midst of the financial distress 
of the times Robert Morris and a few other wealthy patriots, putting their all on the cast 
of the die, came forward with their private fortunes and saved the colonies from impend- 
ing ruin. The mothers of America also lent a helping hand by the preparation and free 
contribution of clothing and supplies for the army. A large part of the food and clothes 
of the patriot soldiers was at this time furnished as a gift from women who, equally with 
their husbands and brothers and fathers, had adopted the motto of Independence or Death. 

TREASON OF ARNOLD. 
The autumn of 1780 was a period of gloom, and in the midst of it the country was 
shocked by the news that General Benedict Arnold had turned traitor to his country! 
Arnold had been in the early years of the war one of the bravest of the brave. After the 
battle of Bemis's Heights in the fall of 1777, he had been promoted to the rank of Major- 
General and made commandant of Philadelphia; for the severe wound which he had 
received precluded him for a season from the service of the field. While living at Phila- 
delphia he married the daughter of a loyalist, came thus into high society and entered 
upon a career of extravagance which soon overwhelmed him with debt. Having come 
financially into a strait place he stooped to the commission of certain frauds on the supply 

department of the army. This discovered, charges were preferred 
against him by Congress, and he was convicted by a court-martial. 
Seeming to forget his disgrace, however, Arnold soon after- 
wards obtained command of the fortress of West Point, on the 
Hudson. On the last day of July, 1780, he assumed control of 
the important arsenal and depot of stores at that place. It 
would appear that from the date of his trial and disgrace he 
began to entertain the design of avenging himself on his country 
and countrymen. At all events, after arriving at West Point he 
presently entered into a secret correspondence with Sir Henry 
Clinton at New York, and finally offered, or at least accepted 
an offer, to betray his country for British gold. It was agreed 
that the British fleet should ascend the Hudson and that the 
garrison and fortress of West Point should be surrendered to the 
scKNE OF ARNOLD'S TREASON, cucmy witliout a struggle. J 

'^ As his representative General Clinton had chosen Major 

John Andre, the Adjutant General of the British army, to go in person and hold a con- 
ference with Arnold. The former was sent up the Hudson on the 21st of September 
and was directed to complete the arrangements with the traitor for the delivery of the 
fortress. Andre went in full uniform and the meeting was held outside of the American 
lines; for Clinton had directed his subordinate not to incur the danger which would follow 
his entering within the pickets of the American forces. 




240 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



About midnight of the 21st Andre reached the designated spot, went ashore from 
the ship Vulture, and met Arnold in the thicket. Daydawn approached before the nefariouj 
business wiis done and the conspirators entered the American lines. Andre was obliged 
by this contingency to disguise himself, and by so doing he assumed the character of 

a spy. 

The two ill-starred men spent the next day at a house near by and there the business 
was completed. Arnold agreed to surrender West Point for ten thousand pounds and a 
commission as Brigadier in the British army. Andre for his part received papers contain- 
a description of West Point, its resources in men and stores, its defences and the best 
method of attack. Meanwhile, the Vulture lying at anchor in the Hudson had been dis- 
covered by some American artillery-men, who planted a battery and drove the ship down 
the river. 

CAPTURE AND EXECUTION OF ANDRE. 

When Andre finished his business with Arnold and would return to his ship he found 
the vessel gone. For this reason he was obliged to cross to the other side of the river and 
return to New York by land. He passed tlie American outposts in safety bearing Arnold's 

passport and giving the ^^ ^. ■ ^ - — > ;fy,> ..--tf^-^^tfj'.s^^^sg^^ 
nanweoi John Anderson. / \t»v •<-«!?. «<-.', . <.i 

At Tarr>-town, however, 
he was confronted by 
three militiamen, John 
Paulding, David 
Williams and Isaac Van 
Wart, who arrested his 
progress, stripped him, 
found his papers and 
delivered him to Colonel 
Jameson at Northcastle. 
Through that officer's 
amazing stupidity 
Arnold was at once noti- 
fied that "John Ander- 
son" had been taken 
with his passport and 
some papers " of a very 
dangerous tendency 1 ' ' 

Arnold on hearing the news sprang up from his breakfast, exchanged a few hurried 
words with his wife, fled to the river, took a boat and succeeded in reaching the / 'ulture. 
The unfortunate Andre was thus left to his fate. He was tried by a court-martial at Tappait 
and condemned to death as a spy. On the 2d of October he was led to the gallows and 
tinder the stern code of war — though he pleaded vainly to be shot as a soldier — was hanged. 
Though dying the death of a felon he met his doom as the brave man goes to death, and 
aftertimes have not failed to commiserate his deplorable fate. Arnold for his part received 
bis pay ! 

Thus drew to a close the year 1780. It did not appear that independence was nearer 
or surer than it had been at the beginning. In the dark days of December, however, there 
came a ray of light from Europe. For several years the people of Holland, like the French, 




CAPTURE OF MAJOR ANDRE. 



il 



EPOCH OF INDEPENDENCE. 241 

had secretly sympathized with the Americans and the government extended silent help and 
support to the cause in which they were engaged. After the conclusion of the alliance with 
France negotiations were opened with the Dutch for a commercial treaty similar to that 
which had been obtained by Franklin from the French court. The agents of Great Britain 
discovered the purpose of the Dutch government, but the latter was not to be turned from 
its intent At first the British agents angrily remonstrated, and then on the 20th of Decem- 
ber there was an open declaration of war. Thus the Netherlands were added to the alliance 
against Great Britain. It seemed that the King of England and his ministers would have 
enough to do without further efforts to enforce a Stamp Act on the Americans or to levy a 
tax on their imported tea. 

Notwithstanding the advantage gained by the accession of Holland the year 1781 
opened gloomily for the patriot cause. The condition of the army at times became desper- 
ate; no food, no pay, no clothing. In their distress the soldiers once and again became 
mutinous. The whole Pennsylvania line on New Year's Day broke from their barracks 
and marched on Philadelphia. At Princeton they were met by emissaries from Sir Henry 
Clinton, who tempted them with offers of money and clothing if they would desert the 
standard of their countrj'. The mutinous patriots, however, were not of that mettle. They 
made answer by seizing the British agents and delivering them to General Wayne to be 
hanged as spies. For this deed the commissioners of Congress, who now arrived at the 
American camp, ofifered the insurgents a large reward, but this also was against the temper 
of the angry patriots, who though mutinous scornfully rejected the overtures of both friends 
and enemies. Washington knowing how shamefully the army had been neglected by Con- 
gress was not unwilling that the insurrection should take its own course. The Congres- 
sional agents were therefore left to adjust the difficulty as best they could with the rebellious 
troops. 

EXECUTION OF MUTINEERS. 

The success of the mutineers in obtaining their rights furnished a bad example to 
others who were discontented for less valid reasons. About the middle of January the New 
Jersey brigade stationed at Pompton revolted. This movement Washington deemed it 
necessary to put down by force. General Robert Howe was sent with five hundred regulars 
against the camp of the insurgents and they were obliged to submit to severe discipline. 
Twelve of the ringleaders were taken and obliged to execute two of their own number as a 
warning to the army. From that day to the close of the Revolution order was completely 
restored. 

These insurrections had on the whole a good rather than a bad effect; Congress was 
thoroughly alarmed and immediate provisions were made for the better support of the army. 
Washington himself after having enforced order and discipline in the ranks wrote indignant 
ktters to Congress in behalf of his suffering soldiery and that body was thus lashed into 
doing something for the better support and greater comfort of the men who were fighting 
the battle for independence. An agent of the government in the days of this emergency 
•was sent to France to obtain a further loan of money. Robert Morris was appointed Secre- 
tary of Finance, and the Bank of North America was organized as the nucleus of a new 
monetary system for the country. Although the outstanding debts of the United States 
could not for the present be paid, yet all future obligations were promptly met Morris 
and his friends pledged their private fortunes to the maintenance of the financial credit of 
the nation. 

As to military operations the same were begun in the north by an expedition Ot 
16 



242 



PEOPLE'S PIISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 




Arnold. That malioTi genius, after his treason, had succeeded in reaching New York, had 

received the promised compensation and accompanying commission as brigadier-general in 

the British army 

Before the setting 

of winter, namely, in 

November of ijf^n, 

Washington and Majnr 

Henry Lee, or rather 

the latter, with tlic 

consent of the forme i, 

had fonned a plan i' ■ 

take Arnold prison t 

Sergeant John Chanii 

was appointed to ii 

dertake the darinpf eii- 

terprise. The sergeant 

made a mock desertion 

from the army, fled to 

the enemy, entered 

New York, and with 

two assistants joined 

Arnold's company. 

These three concerted 

measures to abduct the 

traitor from the city and convey him to the American camp. The scheme had almost 

proved successful, but Arnold chanced to move his quarters to another part of the city 

and the plan was defeated. A month afterward he was given command of a fleet and a 

land-force of si.xteen hundred men, and on the i6th of December he left New York to 

make a descent on the coasts of Virginia. 

o 

CAREER OF ARNOLD AS A BRITISH OFFICER. 

The expedition reached its destination in the James River valley in Januar>-, 1781. 
There Arnold began his war on his countrymen. His expedition was a foray rather than a 
campaign, and his march was marked with many ferocious and vindictive deeds. It might 
be discerned, however, thnt the daring and ability which had characterized his former 
exploits were henceforth wanting. He was a ruined man. He had sold himself instead 
of his countr}'. Weakness had come witli crime, and the havoc of conscience and remorse 
were in him and around him. His command succeeded in destroying a large amount of 
public and private property in the vicinity of Richmond. The country along the James 
was laid waste until there was little left to excite the cupidity or gratify the revenge of the 
traitor and his followers. Arnold then took up his headquarters in Portsmouth, a few miles 
south of Hampton Roads. 

The success of the expedition as a destroying force had been such as to induce Sir 
Henn- Clinton to support the movement. About the middle of April he sent General 
Phillips to Portsmouth with a force of two thousand men. These were joined with Arnold's 
men and Phillips assumed command of the whole. A second time tlie expedition was 
directed through the fertile districts of lower Virginia, and pillage and devastation and fire 
marked the pathway of the invaders. Arnold had been humiliated by the fact that Phillips 



SERGEANT CHAMPE'S DEPARTURE. 



I 



EPOCH OF INDEPENDENCE. 



243 



was placed over him in command, for Clinton never gave his confidence to the man -wtw 
had betrayed his conntr}'. 

In a short time, however, deatli assisted the ambitions of the traitor by clutching 
General Phillips and sending him to the grave. This devolved the command on Arnold, 
and for the short space of seven days he ^ ^ "-. 

stood at the head of the British forces in j«fflifft,£' -j^^, <. 

Virginia. That, however, was the ^5 "; J^ 

height of his treasonable glory. On the 
20th of May Lord Cornwallis arrived at 
Petersburg and ordered him begone. 

{0^ '■ 




_ _ . . ■■.■mn- mir,~r • ~—~S^ a frenzced girvs attempt upon ths 

^^^^^^ K>i3i^^^^^% -;^^ LIFE OF ARNOLD. 

Returning to New York, he received 
from Clinton a second detachment, 
with which he entered Long Island Sound, landed at New London in his new native 
State, and captured the town. Fort Griswold, which was defended by Colonel Led- 
yard, was taken by assault, but when the commandant surrendered, he and seventy^ 



244 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED vSTATES. 

three of his garrison were murdered in cold blood. The town was then set on fire 
and nearly every house of importance, including the custom-house, court-house, jail, 
market and churches, was consumed. It is a tradition that Arnold took his position 
in tlie belfry of a church and watched the destruction of the city. During this riot of 
massacre and holocaust Arnold rode through the streets and stimulated his soldiers in their 
work of murder and demolition, as if his savagery could never be glutted. It is related 
tliat a young woman, frenzied by the murder of her father and the ruin of her home, seized 
a loaded musket and in her desperation attempted the life of the traitor, a purpose in which 
she was only prevented by the gun missing fire. Moved by her bravery, no less than by 
her great sorrow, Arnold rel'used to punish the girl for attempting his life, leaving her amid 
the wreckage and slaughter that he had wrought 

BATTLE OF COWPENS. 

We have already noted the change in commanders at the south. The American army, 
after its defeat at Sander's Creek, had concentrated at Charlotte, North Carolina, and passed 
under command of General Greene. By this time General Daniel Morgan had risen to 
great reputation in the south, and was trusted by Greene as one of his principal supporters. 
Early in January Morgan at the head of a considerable body of troops was sent into the 
Spartanburg district of South Carolina to repress the Tories. Thither he was followed by 
the able and daring Colonel Tarleton with the British cavalrj'. The Americans took 
position at a place called the Cowpens where, on the 17th of Januar)-, they were attacked by 
the enemy. Tarleton made the onset with his usual impetuosity, but Morgan's men bravely 
held their ground. After some hard fighting the American horse, under Colonel William 
Washington, made a charge and scattered the British dragoons in all directions. Ten 
of the enemy's officers and ninety privates were killed in the battle. The victory was 
decisive and Tarleton's force was for the time dispersed. 

The intelligence of the fight at Cowpens astonished Comwallis, but he hastily marched 
up the river in the hope of cutting off Morgan's retreat. General Greene, however, reached 
Morgan's camp and took command in person. Then began a long retreat of the Americans 
and pursuit by the British. On the 28th of January, 1782, the former reached the Catawba 
and crossed safely to the northern bank. Within two hours the British reached the ford 
with full expectation of continuing the pursuit in the morning, but during the night the 
rain poured down in torrents, the river was swollen to a flood, and it was many days before 
the British could cross. 

Then began a race for the Yadkin. The distance between the two rivers was sixty 
miles, but in two days the Americans arrived at the Yadkin and had nearly completed the 
crossing when the British came in sight. That night the Yadkin also was made impass- 
able by auspicious rains and Comwallis suflfered a second delay. Not until the 9th of 
February did he succeed in crossing to the northern bank. From this position the lines of 
retreat and pursuit lay nearly parallel to the north. A third time the race began, and for 
the third time the Americans won. On the 13th of the month Greene, with the main 
division of the anny, safely crossed the Dan into Virginia. 

DEFEAT AT GUILFORD COURT-HOUSE. 

But it was not his purpose to continue retreating or to remain inactive at the end of the 
race. On the 22d of February, he returned to North Carolina. Meanwhile, Tarleton had 
been sent by Comwallis into the region between the Haw and Deep rivers, to encourage a 
rising of the Tories. They came at his call, and about three hundred loyalist recmits rose 



i 



EPOCH OF INDEPENDENCE. 245 

to him; but while they were marching to Tarleton's camp they were intercepted, cut off, 
and the whole company scattered by the patriot Colonel Lee. 

Greene's army now numbered more than four thousand men, and the enemy under 
Cornwallis were of about equal strength. The American general decided to avoid battle no 
longer, and breaking his camp marched to Guilford Court-House. The British came on in 
the same direction, and on the 15th of March, the two armies met and joined battle. The 
action was severe but indecisive. The Americans lost the field, and were indeed repelled 
for several miles; but in killed and wounded the British suffered the greater losses. 

After the battle of Guilford, Cornwallis decided to withdraw from the south in the 
direction of Virginia. His retreat was first to Wilmington, and then before the end of April, 
to his destination. The British forces in the south remained under command of Lord Raw- 
don. Greene did not at the first follow Cornwallis, but advanced into South Carolina, and 
captured Fort Watson on the Santee. He then took post at Hobkirk's Hill, near Camden. 
Here on the 25th of April, he was attacked by the British under Rawdon, and a severe bat- 
tle was fought in which for a while victory strongly inclined to the American side. But 
Greene's centre, through some mismovement, gave way, and the day was lost. 

After this engagement Lord Rawdon retired with his command to Eutaw Springs. It 
had now been discovered by the British that their various conquests in the thinlj^ populated 
districts of the Carolinas brought them nothing but vacuity. Neither the sentiments of the 
people were changed nor was their ultimate ability to continue the war seriously affected by 
the British successes. The forces of the enemy after a victory would find themselves in an 
open country surrounded by a hostile population whom they could not strike, and it gener- 
ally happened that the enemy was satisfied to return to some town or city where greater com- 
fort might be found. After the retreat of Rawdon to Eutaw Springs the British posts at 
Orangeburg and Augusta were retaken by the patriots. The place called Ninety-Six was 
besieged by Greene, and was about to succumb when Rawdon turned back for battle, and the 
American commander deemed it prudent to retire, during the sickly months of summer, to 
the woody hill-countr>' of the Santee. 

In the interval that followed, Sumter, Lee and Marion with their partisan bands became 
more active than ever. These patriot leaders were constantly abroad in the saddle and 
smote the Tories right and left. It was at this juncture that Lord Rawdon went to Charles- 
ton and there became a principal actor in one of the most shameful scenes of the Revolu- 
tion. Colonel Isaac Hayne, a patriot officer who had formerly taken an oath of allegiance 
to the King, was caught in command of a troop of American cavalry. His justification 
was that the oath which had been imposed on him by the conquest of the State by the Brit- 
ish had been annulled by the reconquest of Carolina by the Americans; but this claim was 
treated with derision by a court-martial which was organized under Colonel Balfour, com- 
mandant of Charleston. Colonel Hayne was tried, condemned and under the sanction of 
Lord Rawdon was hanged. 

BATTLE OF EUTAW SPRINGS. 

With the subsidence of the heated season General Greene, on the 2 2d of August, 
marched towards Orangeburg. Rawdon hereupon fell back to Eutaw Springs, where he 
was overtaken by the Americans on the 8ch of September. One of the fiercest battles of 
the war ensued, and General Greene was denied the decisive victory only by the unexpected 
bad conduct of some of his troops. He was obliged after a loss of five hundred and fifty 
men to give over the struggle, but not until he had inflicted on the British a loss in killed 
and wounded of nearly seven hundred. General Stuart, who commanded the British on 



246 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



this field, now retreated to Monk's Corner, wliither he was followed by Greene. Gradually 
the British outposts were drawn in, the country.' was g^ven up, and after two months of 
manoeuvring the entire force of the enemy was driven into Charleston. 

In the whole south only this city and Savannah now remained in the power of the 
King's army ; and there were already premonitions that both of these would be abandoned- 
On the nth of July, 1781, Savannah was actually evacuated, but Charleston remained in 
the occupation of the British until the 14th of December, 1782. Such was the close of the 
Revolution in the Carolinas and Georgia. The southern States had suffered most of all by 
the ravages of the enemy, and had been least able to bear such devastation. But with the 
recovery of independence there was an immediate revival, and the traces of war and disaster 
were soon obliterated. 

The movement of Lord Comwallis towards Virginia has already been noted. That General 
reached the Old Dominion in the early part of May, 1781, and took immediate command 




CUARGB OF THE AMERICANS UNDER GREENE. 

of the British army. Like his predecessors, Arnold and Phillips, he conducted in the firsi 
place a desolating expedition in the valley of the James. The countr}- was ravaged and 
propert>', public and private, destroyed to the value of fifteen millions of dollars. Wash- 
ington had entrusted the defence of Virginia to the Marquis of Lafayette ; but that brave 
young officer had an inadequate force under his command, and was unable to meet Com- 
Wallis in the field. 

The British General proceeded to the vicinity of Richmond without serious opposition, 
and sent out thence a detachment under Tarlcton to Charlottesville, where the Virginia 
govenament had its seat. Tarleton moved with his accustomed rapidity, surprised the town 
and captured seven members of the legislature. Governor Thomas Jefferson barely saved 
himself by flight, escaping into the mountains. 

The 6th of July was marked by an audacious episode in the campaigns of this year. 
General Anthony Wayne, leading Lafayette's advance, came suddenly upon the whole 



EPOCH OF IXDEPENDEX'CE. 



247 



British army at a place called Green's Springs, on the James. Perceiving the peril into 
which he had thrown himself by incaution, Wayne made an audacious attack, at which 
Comwallis was so much surprised that the American commander was able to fall back and 
save himself by a hasty retreat. No pursuit was attempted, and the Americans got away 
after inflicting an equal loss upon the enemy. 

Comwallis now crossing the James marched to Portsmouth, where Arnold had made 
his quarters in the previous spring. It is believed that the able British general had now 
divined the probable success of the American cause and would fain have fortified himself in 
a secure position at Portsmouth, but Sir Henry Clinton, the commander-in-chief, ordered 
otherwise ; and in the early part of August the British army was embarked and conveyed 
to Yorktown, on the southern bank of York River a few miles above the confluence of that 
stream with. the Chesapeake. Destiny had reserved this obscure place as the concluding 
scene of the most important war of the eighteenth centurj'. 

CAMPAIGN AGAINST CORNWALLIS. 
The courageous Lafayette quickly advanced into the peninsula between the York and 
the James, and took post only eight miles distant from the British. From this position he 
sent urgent despatches to Washington beseeching him to come to Virginia and direct in 
striking the enemy a fatal blow. A powerful French armament commanded by the Count 
de Grasse was hourly expected in the Chesapeake, and the eager Lafayette saw at a glance 
that if a friendly fleet could be anchored in the mouth of the York River and a suitable 
land-force brought to bear upon Comwallis, the doom of that able General and his whole 
command would be sealed. 

Washington also divined the situation, and from his camp on the Hudson kept looking 
wistfully to the south. During the months of July and August his mind was greatly exer- 
cised with the prospect. Thus far the military situation had demanded that he should 
remain in the north confronting Sir Henry Clinton and watching his opportunity to recover 
New York City from the British. But the condition of affairs in Virginia was such as to 
lure him thither, and he determined to direct a campaign against Comwallis. He took the 

precaution, however, to mislead Sir Henry Clinton 
by confirming him in the belief that a descent was 
about to be made on New York. The Americans 
and French would immediately begin a siege of 
that city. Such was the tenor of the delusive 
despatches which Washington wrote with the in- 
tention that they should fall into the hands of the 
enemy. The ruse was successful and Clinton made 
ready for the expected attack on New York. Even 
when, in the last days of August, information was 
borne to Clinton that the American army had 
broken camp and was on the march across New 
Jersey to the south he would not believe it, but 
on the contrary went ahead preparing for the antici- 
pated assault on himself. 

In the meantime Washington pressed rapidly 
forward and soon entered Virginia. He paused two days at Mount Vernon, where he had 
not been for six years. At Williamsburg he met Lafayette and received from him an 
account of the situation in Lower Virginia. There he learned that on the 30th of August 




SLSi 
BkiDi 
Soiuooaoi 



Ouarrt O"*"* 
J J ^ 

U.«adOukTd 

jn )J[ MriUahlaia 

^yiomeuil'^j'^ down tlteirArmt. 









SIEGE OF YORKTOWN. 



24S 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



Coaat de Grasse's fleet, numbering twenty-eight ships of the line with nearly four thousand 
infantry on board, had reached the Chesapeake and come to safe anchor in the mouth of 
York River. Already Cornwallis was securely blockaded both by sea and land. 

THE SIEGE AND SURRENDER OF YORKTOWN. 

The sequel showed that the French navy in its several parts was acting in concert 
Just after the arrival of Count de Grasse came also Count de Barras, who commanded the 
French flotilla at Newport. 
He brought with him into 
the Chesapeake eight addi- 
tional ships of the line and 
ten transports ; also cannon 
for the siege of Yorktown. 
By the beginning of Septem- 
ber York River was effectu- 
ally closed at the mouth and 
the Americans and the 
French began to strengthen 
their lines by land. On the 
5th of the month the English 
Admiral Graves appeared in 
the bay with his squadron, 
and a naval battle ensued 
in which the British ships 
were so roughly handled 
that they were glad to draw 
off" and return to New York. On the 28th of September the allied armies, now greatly 
•uperior in numbers to the enemy and confident of success, encamped closely around York- 
town, and the siege was 
-^'^ »*i regularly begun. The 

— =t -=.--.. -•"''<(«, investment was destined 

to be of short duration. 
Tarleton, who occupied 
Gloucester Point on the 
opposite side of York 
River, made one spirited 
sally but was driven back 
with severe losses. 

By the 6th of October 
the trenches had been 
contracted to a distance 
of only six hundred 
yards from the British 
works. From this posi- 
tion the cannonade 
became constant and 
tflfective. On the nth of the month the allies secured a second parallel only three hundred 
yards distant from the redoubts of Cornwallis. Three days afterwards, in the night, the 




AMERICANS CAPTURING A REDOUBT AT YORKTOWN. 




SCRRKNDER OF CORNWALLIS AT YORKTOWN. 



EPOCH OF INDEPENDENCE. 249 

Americans made an assault, and the outer works of the British were carried by storm. At 
daydawn on the i6th the British made a sortie from their intrenchments, but were wholly 
unsuccessful. They could neither loosen the grip of the allies nor break through the 
closing lines. 

On the 17th of the month Cornwallis proposed to surrender, and on the i8th terms of 
capitulation were drawn up and signed. At two o'clock in the afternoon of the 19th Major 
General O'Hara led out the whole British army from the trenches into the open field, where 
in the presence of the allied ranks of France and America seven thousand two hundred and 
forty-seven English and Hessian soldiers laid down their arms, delivered their standards 
and became prisoners of war. L/ord Cornwallis, sick in his tent — or feigning sickness, as 
the tradition of the times asserted — did not go forth to witness the humiliation of his army. 
Washington for his part designated General L,incoln who was of equal rank with O'Hara, 
to receive his sword and represent the commander-in-chief British marines to the number of 
eight hundred and forty were also surrendered. Seventy-five brass and thirty-one iron guns, 
together with all the accoutrements of Cornwallis' s army, were the added fruits of victory. 
DEMONSTRATIONS OF JOY AND PUBLIC THANKSGIVING. 

Great was the enthusiasm of the country on the spread of this triumphant intelligence. 
A swift courier was sent with the news to Congress. On the evening of the 23d of October 
the messenger rode unannounced into Philadelphia. When the sentinels of the city called 
the hour of ten o'clock that night their cry was this : "Ten o'clock, starlight night, and 
Cornwallis is taken ! " It was a fitting thing that the glorious proclamation of victory should 
thus be made iinder the benignant stars in the streets of that old town which first among the 
cities built by men had heard and attested the declaration that all men are created equal! 

On the morning of the 24th of October, Congress joyfully assembled. Never before 
had that body come together, not even on the day of Independence, with so great alacrity 
and enthusiasm. Before the august assembly the modest despatches of Washington were read 
announcing the complete success of the allied campaign of Virginia and the capture of 
Cornwallis and his army. The members exulting and many weeping for gladness adjourned 
and went in concourse with the citizens to the Dutch Lutheran church, where the afternoon 
was turned into Thanksgiving day. The note of rejoicing sounded through the length and 
breadth of the land. Even the humblest took up the shout of emancipation and civil 
liberty ; for it was seen that the dominion of Great Britain in America was forever broken. 

The surrendered army of Cornwallis was marched under guard to the military barracks 
at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, there to await exchange or a treaty of peace. Washington 
with the victorious allies returned to his camps in New Jerse}- and on the Hudson. Not 
only in America, but on the continent of Europe as well, the news of the capture of Corn- 
wallis was received with every demonstration of gladness. But in England the King and 
his ministers heard the tidings with mortification and rage. The chagrin and anger of the 
government was intensified by the fact that a large part of the English people were either 
secretly or openly pleased with the success of the American cause. 

The popular feeling in Great Britain soon expressed itself in Parliament. During the 
fall and winter of 1781 the ministerial majority in that body fell off rapidly. The existent 
government tottered to its fall, and on the 20th of March, 1782, Lord North and his friends, 
unable longer to command the support of Parliament, resigned their offices. A new min- 
istry was immediately formed, favorable to America, favorable to freedom, favorable to 
peace. It became apparent to all men that the independence of the United States was 
virtually achieved. 



250 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

t 

In tne beginning of May the command of the British forces in the United States 
was transferred from Sir Henry Clinton to Sir Guy Carleton. The latter was known 
to be friendly to the cause of the Americans, and he accepted his appointment as the 
beginning of the end. Meanwhile the hostile demonstrations of the enemy, who were now 
confined to New York and Charleston, ceased, and the prudent Washington, discerning the 
advantages of moderation, made no efiforts to dislodge the foe, for the war had virtually 
come to an end. 

ENGLAND ACKNOWLEDGES AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE. 

Congress now became active in the work of securing a treaty of peace. In the summc. 
of 1782 Richard Oswald was sent by Parliament to Paris — a favorable omen ; for the object 
of his mission was to confer with Franklin and Jay, the ambas.sadors of the United States, 
in regard to the terms of an international settlement. Before the discussions were ended 
John Adams, arriving from Amsterdam — for he was American minister to Holland — and 
Henrj' Laurens, from London, came to Paris and were joined with Franklin and Jay in the 
negotiations. The commissioners became assiduous in their work, and on the 30th of 
November, 1782, preliminary articles of peace were agreed to and signed on the part of 
Great Britain by Oswald and on behalf of the United States by Franklin, Adams, Jay and 
Laurens. In the following April the terms were ratified by Congress, but the proclamation 
of peace was for a considerable season deferred. 

This postponement of a public peace between the United States and the mother 
country was occasioned by the existing international complications. As soon as Great 
Britain discerned that American independence was a foregone conclusion she conceived the 
design of interposing herself between the new republic and France. It was clearly perceived 
that France, by her ready alliance with the Americans and her practical and successful 
support of their cause, had gained a great and perhaps permanent advantage in the affec- 
tions of the new nation, and this circumstance was well calculated to arouse the extreme 
jealousy of the British nation and people. 

England felt herself to be the parental State. True, there had been a war, but the 
war was now at an end. Could she not, therefore, reingratiate herself with her late colonies, 
recover her standing with them, resume her sway over their commerce and continue to gain 
as hitherto by the industries and products of the English-speaking race in the New World ? 

The condition was such as to test the fidelity of the Americans to their allies. The 
event showed, however, that a profound alienation had been produced in the hearts of the 
American people towards the mother country. They had suffered too much of wrong and 
oppression, of persecution and outpouring of life and scanty treasure to get over the wound 
and return with good-will to the embrace of the ancestral islands. Peace was, therefore, 
postponed, for France and England were still at war. It was not until the 3d of September, 
1783, that a final treaty was effected between all the nations that had been in the conflict. 
,On that day the ambassadors of Holland, Spain, England, France and the United States, 
in a solemn conference at Paris, agreed to and signed the articles of a pennanent and 
definitive treaty of peace. Then it was that the American people might for the first time 
break forth into universal rejoicing over the achievement of national independence. 

RETURN OF PEACE. 

The treaty of 1783 was full, fair and sufficient for the new republic. The tenns of the 
compact were briefly these : A full and complete recogfuition of the independence, sov- 
ereignty and equality of the United States of America ; the recession by Great Britain ol 
Florida to Spain ; the surrender of all the remaining territory east of the Mississippi and 



EPOCH OF INDEPENDENCE. 



25 



south of the great Lakes to the United States ; the free navigation of the Mississippi and 
the Lakes by American vessels ; the concession of mutual rights in the Newfoundland 
fisheries ; and the retention by Great Britain of Canada and Nova Scotia, with the exclusive 
control of the St. Lawrence. 

We may here note in a few words the final withdrawal from our shores of the military- 
forces of the enemy. Early in August of 1783 Sir Guy Carleton received instructions to 
evacuate New York City. It was some time, however, before this could be conveniently 
accomplished. Three months were spent by the British officers in making arrangements 
for this important event. Finally, on the 25th of November, everything was in readiness 
and the British army was embarked on board the fleet. Then the sails were spread ; the 
ships stood out to sea ; dwindled to white specks on the horizon ; disappeared. The Briton 
was gotie. With what sentiments must the American patriots from the wharves, the 
windows, the housetops of old New York have watched that receding squadron bearing 
away forever from the American coast that hateful force which had so long impeded the 
independence, the liberty, the nationality of the new United States ! Shall we say that the 
American of 1783, as he gazed on that November day adown the harbor of New York at 
the British fleet sinking behind the waters, exulted with mingled joy and hatred over the 
disappearance of his mortal foe ? Shall we believe that rather he remembered with anger 
and feelings of malevolent triumph his victory over the British King and ministrj', and that 
his feelings towards the visible enemy, now becoming invisible across the sea, were those 
of a half-kindly regret and sympathy as for fellow-countrymen of a common race and 
tongue ? 

However this may be, the conflict was over and the victory won. After the struggles 
and sacrifices of an eight years' war the old Continental patriots had achieved the inde- 
pendence of their country. The United 
States of America had become a sove- 
reign, and might now take an 
station among the nations of the 
As for Charleston, that city had already 
been evacuated by the British on 
14th of December, 1782. Thus at 
last were the American coasts, 
from the borders of Florida to the 
Penobscot, freed from the presence 
of the unnatural foe which had so 
long struggled with sword and 
intrigue and invasion to reduce 
the people of the colonies to sub- 
jection and political servitude. 

|H AFFECTING SCENES. 

The concluding scenes of the 
Revolution now passed rapidly, 
like the final acts of a drama. 
On the 4th of December there was a most affecting scene in New York City. Wash- 
ington assembled his oflScers and bade them a final adieu. When they were met the 
chieftain arose and spoke a few affectionate words to his tried comrades in arms. Washing- 
ton was now in his fifty-second year, and had aged perceptibly under the arduous trials and 




WASHINGTON BIDDING 



252 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



responsibilities of the long-continued war. His fidelity to the cause had led him to suffer 
much. We have already noted the fact that for six years after taking command of the 
army at Cambridge he never once revisited his home at Mount Vernon. 

On the day of the separation, when he had ended his remarks he requested each of 
his officers to come forward in turn and take his hand. This they did, and with tears and 
sobs which they no longer cared to conceal the veterans bade him farewell. Washington 
then went on foot to Whitehall, followed by a vast concourse of citizens and soldiers, and 
thence departed en route for Annapolis, where Congress was in session. He paused on his 
way at Philadelphia and made to the proper officers a report of his expenses during the 
war. The account was in his own handwriting, and covered a total expenditure of seventy, 
four thousand four hundred and eighty-five dollars — all correct to a cent. The route of the 
chief from Pallus's Hook to Annapolis was a continuous triumph. The people by hundreds 
and thousands flocked to the villages and roadsides to see him pass. Gray-haired statesmen 
came to speak words of praise ; young men to shout with enthusiasm ; maidens to strew hi? 
way with flowers. 

On the 23d of December, Washington reached Annapolis and was introduced to Con- 
gress. To that body of patriots and sages he delivered an address full of feeling, wisdon. 
and modesty. Then with that dignity which always marked his conduct he surrenderee 
his commission as commander-in-chief of the American army. General Mifflin, at that 
time President of Congress, responded in an eloquent manner, and then the hero retired tc 
his home at Mount Vernon. It was evident to his countrymen and to all the world that he 
gladly relinquished the honors of command, the excitements and ambitions of war for the 
quiet and seclusion of his own home. The man whom only a year before some disaffected 
soldiers and ill-advised citizens were going to make king of America now by his own act 
became a citizen of the new republic which by his genius and sword had become a 
possibility. 





CHAPTER XVHI. 
THE CONFEDERATION. 



READER will remember that at the time of the adop^ 
tion of the Declaration of Independence a committee 
had been appointed to prepare a frame of government 
for the United States. This committee had upon its 
hands a serious and difficult task. The sword of Great 
Britain suspended over the colonies made union neces- 
sary ; but the long-standing independence of each 
tended to obstruct and hinder the needed consolida- 
tion. The Committee on Confederation reported their 
work to Congress in July of 1776. A month was 
spent in fruitless debates, and then the question of 
adopting the articles of union prepared by the com- 
mittee was laid over until the following spring. 

In April of 1777 the report on the Confederation 
of the States was taken up and continued through the summer. The war was now on in 
earnest. The power of Great Britain was overthrown in all the States, and each adopted a 
republican fonn of government for itself. The sentiment for national union made some 
headway ; but there was on the part of many a covert purpose to win independence for the 
States severally instead of collectively, thus leaving each at the end of a successful war to 
pursue its own course in accordance with its old-time principles, policy and purpose. 

ADOPTION OF THE ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION. 
It was not until the 15th of November, 1777, that a vote was taken in Congress and 
the Articles of Confederation reported by the committee reluctantly approved. The next 
step was to transmit the new constitution to the several State legislatures for their adop- 
tion or rejection. The time thus occupied extended to the month of June, 1778, and even 
then the new frame of government was returned to Congress with many amendments. Each 
colonial legislature deemed itself able to improve in some particulars the work to which a 
committee of Congress had given a year of profound consideration. 

Congress, however, was constrained by the nature of its own constitution to consider, 
and indeed to adopt, with many alterations and amendments, the clauses whicn had been 
added to the articles by the colonial assemblies. The most serious objections of the peo- 
ple were thus removed, and the Articles of the Confederation were signed by the delegates 
«f eight states on the 9th of July, 1778. Later in the same month the representatives of ■ 
two other states, Georgia and North Carolina, affixed their signatures. In Novembet ' 
the delegates of New Jersey acceded to the compact; and in February of 1779 the repre- 
sentatives of Delaware added the signature of that small commonwealth. Maryland, 
however, still held aloof, and it was not until March of 1781 that the consent of that 
State was finally obtained. It thus happened that the war of the Revolution was nearly 
ended before the new system of government was fully ratified. 



254 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

The reader will not fail to discover in these circumstances the essentially military 
character of the Revolution of 1776. The civil revolution lagged behind. Doubtless 
the rational patriotism of the times was greatly discouraged and at times disgusted with 
the folly of the people acting in their civil capacity. It would seem in the retrospect 
that so easy and democratic a form of government as was contemplated under the Articles 
of Confederation would have been at once and gladly accepted by the people, anxious to 
obtain a more efficient frame and organ of civil authority; but not so. Ever>'where there 
was cavil, objection, opposition, delay. Meanwhile the Congress of the Revolution, so- 
called, was obliged to labor on without the powers or prerogatives of government. Cer- 
tainly but for the abilities, sound principles and courage of the leaders in the field the 
whole Revolutionary movement must have ended in a complete and dismal failure. 

Thus at the end of the War of Independence the United States found themselves 
under the Articles of Confederation. The government so instituted was a sort of demo- 
cratic republic. It presented itself under the form of a Loose Union of Independent 
Commonwealths — a Confederacy of Sovereign States. Roth the executive and legislative 
powers of the government were vested in a Congress. That bodj' was to be composed of 
not fewer than two nor more than seven representatives from each state. These representa- 
tives were to constitute a single House — no Senate or Upper House was provided for. 
Congress could exercise no other than delegated powers. The sovereignty was reserved to 
the States. The most importdnt of the exclusive privileges of Congpress were the right of 
making war and peace, the regulation of foreign commerce, the power to receive and send 
ambassadors, the control of the coinage, the settlement of disputed boundaries and the care 
of the public domain. There was no president or chief magistrate of the republic; and 
no general judiciary was provided for. The consent of nine States was necessary- to com- 
plete an act of legislation. In voting in Congress, each State was by its delegates to cast 
but a single ballot. The union of the States, or their confederation, thus established was 
declared to be perpetual. 

TR.ALS THAT CONFRONTED THE NEW GOVERNMENT. 

Until March of 17S1, when the Articles of Confedcralion were finally ratified by 
Marj'land, the government — if siich it might be called — continued to be directed by the 
Continental Congress. On the day, however, of the ratification of the Articles by Mary- 
land the Congress of the Revolution adjourned, and on the following morning reassem- 
bled under the new form of government. Almost immediately it became apparent tliat 
that government was inadequate to the exigencies of tlie times. In the first place it con- 
tradicted the doctrines of the Declaration of Independence. It was found that the power 
of Congress under the Articles was no more than a shadow; that shadow instead of being 
derived from the people emanated from the States and these were declared to be sovereign 
and independent. There was therefore no nationality, and indeed the movement towards 
nationality was greatly obstructed by the frame of government which was presumptively 
in its favor. It was fortunate indeed that the War of the Revolution was already virtually 
at an end before this alleged new government was instituted. The sequel showed that 
under trial the Articles of Confederation might have proved to be an agent of miscarriage 
and confusion in the ver>- presence of the enemy. 

The first duty which was devolved on the new government was to provide for the pay- 
ment of the war debt, which had now reached the sum of thirty-eight million dollars. 
Congress could only recommend to the several States the lev>'ing of a sufficient tax to 
meet the indebtedness. Some of the States made the required levy; others were dilatory* 



EPOCH OF INDEPENDENCE. 255 

others refused. Thus at the very outset the government was balked and thwarted, and this 
too in one of the most important essentials of sovereignty. Serious troubles attended the 
disbanding of the anny ; and these also were traceable to the weakness of the new system. 
The soldiers must be paid; but how could Congress pay from an empty treasury ? It was 
rather the inability than the indisposition of that body which led to the embarrassment of 
the times. 

The princely fortune of Robert Morris was, at this crisis, exhausted in the vain effort 
to iphold the credit of the country. He himself was brought to poverty and ruin, and 
finally abandoned to his fate by the very power which he had contributed so much to uphold 
For three years after the treaty of peace the public affairs of the new nation were in a con- 
dition bordering on chaos. The imperilled state of the republic was viewed with alarm by 
the sagacious patriots who had brought the Revolution to a successful issue. It was seen in 
a very short tune that unless the Articles of Confederation could be replaced with a better 
system, the nation would be dissolved into its original elements. 

We shall not in this connection recount the immediate circumstances which led to the 
abandonment of the Articles of Confederation and the substitution therefor of a new Consti- 
tution. Suffice it to say that from 1783 to 1787 the civil powers of the United States 
tended strongly to disintegration and ruin. Washington spoke the truth when he said in 
infinite sorrow that after all the sacrifices of the war for independence the government of 
his country had become a thing of contempt in the eyes of all nations. It was really a 
government of shreds and patches, and the conviction forced itself upon the minds of the 
more thoughtful that a new political system would have to be devised or else the fruits be 
lost of the heroic struggle in which the patriots of 1776 had achieved the possibility of 
national existence. 

TERRITORY OF THE GREAT WEST 

Before concluding the present chapter, we may note with interest two of the important 
works accomplished by that go-between system of government known as the confederation. 
More properly we should say two of the important works accomplished by some of the great 
men who, hampered by the confederative system, still wrought at the problem of nationality. 
The first of these was the organization of the Territory Northwest of the River Ohio. It 
will be remembered that the campaigns of George Rogers Clarke, in the year i778-'79, had 
wrested from the British the vast domain between the Alleghanies and the Mississippi. 
This region was held by the united colonies at the time of the treaty of 1785. The rule of 
uti possedetis^ therefore, prevailed; the parties to the compact should " hold as much as they 
possessed." 

Thus the territory of the new United States was extended westward to the Father of 
Waters. But how should this great domain be brought under organization and put in pro- 
cess of development? As a preliminary measure, the vast region in question was ceded to 
the United States by Virginia, New York, Massachusetts and Connecticut. For the govern- 
ment of the territory an ordinance was drawn up originally by Thomas Jefferson, and 
finally adopted by Congress on the 13th of July, 1787. By the terms of the ordinance it 
was stipulated that not fewer than three nor more than five States should be formed out of 
the great territory thus brought within the possibilities of civilization ; that the States when 
organized should be admitted on terms of equality with the Old Thirteen; that a liberal 
■ystem of education should be assured to the inhabitants of the new commonwealths; and 



256 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

that slavery or involuntary servitude, except for the punishment of crime, should be forever 
prohibited therein. 

Over the new territory General Arthur St Claire, then President of Congress, was ap- 
pointed military governor; and in the summer of the following year he established his head- 
quarters at Marietta and entered upon the duties of his office. Out of the noble domain 
over which the authority of the English-speaking race was thus extended the five great 
States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin were destined in course of time 
to be organized and admitted into the Union. 

A second measure of this epoch is worthy of particular notice, as it insured to the peo- 
ple of the United States the not unimportant advantiges of an easy and scientific system 
of money and account Up to the last qu.:rter of the eighteenth century the monetary s}s- 
tems of the different nations had been — as they still are in many instances — inconvenient in 
the last degree. In the Old Thirteen colonies the monetary count had been by guinexs, 
pounds, shillings and pence, after the manner of the mother country. With the achieve- 
ment of independence some of the American statesmen became dissatisfied with the mone- 
tary system that had hitherto prevailed and proposed a newer and better. 

The leader of this movement, as in the case of the organization of the northwest ter- 
ritor>', was Thomas Jefferson. As early as January of 1782 he had turned his attention to 
the moneys current in the several States, and had urged Robert Morris, the Secretar}' of 
Finance, to report a uniform system to Congress. The work of "preparing the report was in- 
tnisted by the Secretary to Gouverneur Morris, who prepared a system based on that of ex- 
isting foreign coins, chiefly those of Great Britain. 

Against this report Jefferson objected. He himself prepared what he calls in his 
Memoirs a new "system of money-arithmetic." "I propose," he said, "to adopt the 
DOLL.^R as our unit of account payment, and that its divisions and subdivisions shall be in 
the decimal ratio.'''' Hereupon a controversy sprang up between Jefferson and the officers of 
the treasury; but the fonner carried his measure to Congress and prevailed. His system 
was adopted, and the benefits, we might almost say the blessings, of decimal coinage and 
accounting were forever secured to the people of the United States. 

It was thus that the independence of the Thirteen United Colonies of North America 
was achieved. The work had been undertaken with scarcely a prospect of success. In the 
light of the retrospect it were difficult to conceive by what agency or agencies the colo- 
nies could succeed in a war with the mother country. The disproportion in resources be- 
tween Great Britain and America was ver\' great. The British monarchy was already one 
of the oldest and most substantial political stnictures in the world. On our side there was 
no stnicture at all. Eventhing as yet in America remained not only local, but peculiar 
and individual. A general government had to be fonned in the very front and teeth of the 
emergency. The sentiment of union could not be immediately evoked in the midst of such 
a people and under such conditions. The colonies were as weak for war as they were poor 
in those resources with which every warlike enterprise must be supplied. On the other 
hand. Great Britain was in these particulars as strong as the strongest. Nevertheless, the 
battle went against the strong and in favor of the weak. It was an issue settled by right- 
eousness, and fortune, and truth rather than by the might of superior armies. 




AMERICAN GENERALS OF THE REVOLUTION AND WAR OF l8l2. 



17 



(257) 



BOOK THIRD. 



Epoch of Nationality. 




CHAPTER XIX. 
THE NEW CONSTITUTION. 

iiREAT was the distress of the new United States under theb 
so-called Articles of Confederation. The Revolutionary 
tumult had not died away until the more thoughtfu? 
patriots discovered the essential weakness of their frara« 
of government. The confederation was indeed neithei 
the one thing nor the other. It was neither distinctl) 
national nor clearly Ifical in its character. It partook 
more of the nature of what the Gennans call the Statten- 
bund, or State-leagiie, than of the nature of the Bundes- 
staat, or true union. It was clear to the statesmen of thf 
period that no effectual consolidation of the States had 
been accomplished by the confederation, and that anothei 
movement of a different and more radical character would 
be necessary to secure a real union of the United States 
of America. 

It is not needed in this connection to recount the many and diverse projects which the 
wisdom of the time suggested in the direction of establishing a better government for the 
new American nation. The real impulse towards the remodelling of the existing system 
appears to have originated at Mount Vernon and in tlie thought and heart of Washington. 
It will perhaps never be known precisely to what extent the Father of his Country accepted 
and adopted the thoughts and suggestions of others respecting the new frame of govern- 
ment, and to what extent his notions were excogitated from his own slow but capacious 
mind. There were at the epoch under consideration many thinkers of larger and more 
ftctive intellectuality than was Washington. Such personages were accustomed to cor- 
iTEspoud with the sage of Mount Vernon, to visit aud converse with him and to discuss the 
dvil condition and political needs of the new republic. Perhaps it was out of such 
elements that the project of remodelling the Articles of Confederation at length took vital 
form. 

However tliis may be, Washington, in the year 1785, in conference with certain statesmen 
at his own home, advised the calling of a convention to meet at Annapolis in the following 
year for the general consideration of the political and commercial needs of the nation. The 
j»oposition was received with favor, and in September of 1786 the representatives of five 

(25S) 



EPOCH OF NATIONALITY. 259 

States assembled at Annapolis. The question of a tariff on imports was discussed, for than 
was the fundamental business of the meeting, and then the attention of the delegates was 
turned to the subject of revising the Articles of Confederation. 

Such a work seemed to be demanded by every interest of public policy. Since, how- 
ever, only a minority of the States were represented in the conference, it was resolved to 
adjourn until May of the following year. All the States were in the meantime to be 
urgently requested to send representatives to the second meeting. The interest of Congres* 
was awakened, and that body invited the legislatures of the several States to appoint dele- 
gates to the proposed convention. 

To this invitation all the State assemblies except that of Rhode Island responded favor*' 
ably. The motives of such a movement were actively present in all parts of the country. 
A ruined credit, a bankrupt treasury, a disordered finance, a crazy constitution and a gov- 
ernment without vital energy or prerogative all seemed to appeal to the patriotic mind as 
the strongest possible incentives to the movement for a better constitution. It was under 
such impulses that the people were sufficiently lifted above their prejudices to give • 
measure of favor to the proposal for a convention ; and accordingly on the second Monday 
in May, 1787, the representatives of the various States assembled at Philadelphia. Such 
was the origin of the Constitutional Convention. 

THE QUESTION AT ISSUE. 

Washington had lent himself with zeal to the project. He came to the convention as 
a delegate from Virginia, and was at once chosen president of the body. It appears in the 
light of the retrospect that at the first the common understanding was that the business in 
hand was to remodel the Articles of Confederation. About fifty of the leading citizens of 
the United States were present as delegates, and their first deliberations looked no further 
than the modification of the existing sj'stem, so as to give to it a greater efficiency 
and power of administration. A few leading spirits in the convention, however, such 35 
Washington, Franklin, Charles Pinckney and Madison, saw further than this, and it was 
not long until the issue of making a new constitution was sprung upon the convention. 
Indeed, with the progress of debate it became more and more evident that no mere revision 
of the old form of government would suffice for the future of America. 

It was on the 29th of May that Edmund Randolph, of Virginia, introduced a bold 
resolution to set aside the old Articles of Confederation and to adopt a new constitution. 
This proposition brought out a great and long-continued debate. A committee was 
finally appointed to revise the existing frame of government, but with large liberty to 
consider the whole question at issue. The committee went into session, and it was not 
until the beginning of September that a report was submitted. The report was essentially 
the present Constitution of the United States. The debate thereon was renewed. Many 
modifications, changes and amendments were made in the report of the committee, but a 
draught which finally came from the pen of Gouvemeur Morris was adopted. This ia 
its turn was sent to a committee of revision, of which Alexander Hamilton was chair 
man, and he it was who gave to the instrument its final touches. These included the 
prefixing of the Preamble, which makes the Constitution of the United States to proceed 
fro7n the people instead of from the States, thereby giving to it an air and expression of 
nationality for which we should look in vain in other parts of the instrument. 

As soon as the Constitution was prepared and adopted by the convention of 1787 
copies of the instrument were made out and forwarded to the several legislatures for ratifi- 
cation or rejection. It was already known that the people of the States were far front 



26o PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

ananiinous on the question of the proposed new govenimenL They were divided in theii 
sentiments and opinions first of all as to whether it was desirable to have any consolidated 
union of the States, but more particularly they were divided as to whether, granting the 
desirability of the proposed union, the Constitution prepared by the convention of 1787 
was desirable as the fundamental law of the land. 

It soon appeared indeed that a great majority of the people were, for the time at least, 
in the negative on both these questions. The danger from the oppressions and tyranny of 
Great Britain had now passed away. Independence had been secured. Local independence 
leemed to satisfy, and the desirability of nationality and union was not strongly felt by the 
average patriot of 1787. 

THE BiRTH OF POLITICAL PARTIES IN AMERICA. 

It was out of these conditions that the first great political agitation of our country was 
engendered. Those who favored the new frame of government were called Federalists ; 
those who opposed, Anti-Federalists or Republicans. The leaders of the fonner party were 
Washington, Jay, Madison and Hamilton, the latter statesman throwing the whole force 
of his extraordinary genius and learning into the controversy. In those able papers called 
the Federalist he and Madison and Jay successfully answered ever}' objection of the Anti- 
Federal party. It was in this noble argumentation that Hamilton won the place of first 
ind perhaps greatest expounder of constitutional liberty in America. To him the republic 
owes a debt of perpetual gratitude for his part in establishing on a firm and enduring basis 
the present constitutional system of the United States. 

The contest in the several States in the union was heated and protracted. In each 
State an election was held by the people, and delegates chosen to a convention by which 
the proposed Constitution was to be adopted or rejected. In several States the opposition 
had a majority. It was found, however, on the assembling of the conventions that the 
principles on which tlie opposition rested had already been sapped and destroyed, at least in 
their vital elements. The supporters of a consolidated union had everywhere gained 
ground. The Federalist had been scattered into ever)" State, and its arguments had pre- 
vailed over all except unconquerable prejudice. Nevertheless it was an open question 
whether the people would accept the new government prepared by the convention of 1787. 

The little State of Delaware was the first to answer, and her answer was in the affinna- 
tive. In her convention on the 3d of December, 1787, the voice of the commonwealth wai- 
unanimously recorded in favor of the new Constitution. Ten days later Pennsylvania gave 
her decision by a vote of forty-six to twenty-three in favor of ratification. On the 19th of 
the same month the New Jersey convention added the approval of that State by a unani- 
mous vote, and on the 2d of December, Georgia followed with the same action. Then on 
the 9th of January came the decision of the Connecticut convention, rendered with a vote 
of a hundred and twenty-eight to forty in favor of adoption. 

In Massachusetts the Constitution encountered the most serious opposition. Much of 
the ancient Puritan democracy was set against it. Patriotism was suspicious of the pro- 
posed union. Patriotism saw in the President provided for by the Constitution a new sort 
of king, and In the whole system a new sort of monarchy to be substituted for the heredi- 
tary monarchy which had been destroyed. The battle for adoption was hard fought and 
barely won. The ballot taken in the convention on the 6th of Febniary, 1778, resulted in 
ratification by the close vote of a hundred and eighty seven to a hundred and sixty-eight. 
The decision of Massachusetts, however, virtually decided the contest On the 28th of 
the following April Mar>'land gave her decision by the strong vote of sixty-three to twelve. 



EPOCH OF NATIONALITY. 261 

Next came the convention of South Carolina, in which the vote for adoption was carried 
by a hundred and forty-nine to seventy- three. 

In New Hampshire there was another hard struggle, as indeed there was in all parts 
of New England. But the vote for adoption finally prevailed by fifty-seven to forty-six, 
June 2ist, 1788. This was the ninth State in the affirmative, and the work was done. For 
by its own terms the new government was to go into operation when nine States should 
ratify. Thus far the great commonwealth of Virginia had hesitated. There, too, the 
spirit of democracy and localism was rampant. Washington and Madison were for the 
Constitution ; but Jefferson and Henry were opposed. Not until the 25th of June did hei 
convention declare for adoption, and then only by a vote of eighty-nine to seventy-nine. 

OBSTINACY OF CERTAIN STATES. 

It was now clear throughout the country that the new government would be organ- 
ized, and this fact was used as a powerful argument in favor of adopting the Constitution by 
the convention of New York, at Poughkeepsie. The hope that New York city would be the 
<eat of the Federal government also acted as a motive. Two-thirds of the convention had 
been chosen on a platfonn of pronounced opposition to the Constitution; but the minority, 
anderthe powerful lead of Hamilton, gradually gained in the debates, until July 27th, 1788, 
when a motion to ratify was finally carried by a fair majority. 

Only Rhode Island and North Carolina now persisted in their refusal. But in the latter 
itate a new convention was called, and on the 13th of November, 1789, the Constitution 
was formally adopted. As to Rhode Island, her pertinacity was in inverse ratio to her 
Importance. At length Providence and Newport seceded from the commonwealth; the 
question of dividing the territory between Massachusetts and Connecticut was raised and a 
wholesome alarm produced among the people. The little refractory State at last yielded by 
adopting the Constitution May 29th, 1790. The new government had already been 
organized for thirteen months so that Rhode Island was virtually admitted into a Union 
already existent Then for the first time the English-speaking race in the New World, 
with the exception of the remote Canadians, was united under a common government 
•trong enough for safety and liberal enough for freedom. 

A DIGEST OF THE CONSTITUTION. 

What, then, was the instrument which the American people thus adopted for the civil 
government of themselves and their posterity? The Constitution of the United States 
provides that the governmental powers of the republic shall e.xist under three general 
heads — Legislative, Executive and Judicial. The legislative power is vested in Congress— 
a body composed of a Senate and a House of Representatives. The members of the Senate 
are chosen by the legislatures of the several States and serve for a period of six years. 
Each State — ^whatever may be its area and population — is represented by two Senators, 
The members of the House of Representatives are elected by the people of the respective 
States; and each State is entitled to a number of Representatives proportionate to the popu-. 
lation of that State. The members of this branch are chosen for a term of two yeaiSt 
Congress is the law-making power of the nation, and all legislative questions of a general 
character are the appropriate subjects of Congressional action. 

The executive power of the United States is vested in a President, who is chosen for a 
period of four years by a body of men called the Electoral College. The electors compos- 
ing the college are chosen by the people of the several States for the particular purpose of 
electing a President and Vice-President. Each state is entitled to a number of electors im 



262 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

the college equal to the number of its Senators and P^epresentatives in Congress. The 
duty of the President is to enforce the laws of Congress in accordance with the Constitution. 
He is coinmandcr-in-cliief of the armies and navies of the United States. Over the legis- 
lation of Congress he has the power of veto; but a two-thirds Congressional majority max- 
pass a law, the President's veto to the contrary notwithstanding. He has the right of 
appointing cabinet officers and foreign ministers; but all of his appointments must be 
approved by the Senate. The treaty-making power is likewise lodged with the President; 
but in this also the concurrence of the Senate is necessary. In case of the death, resignation 
or removal of the President, the Vice-President becomes chief magistrate, or Acting-Presi- 
dent of the United States; otherwise his duties are limited to presiding over the Senate. 

The judicial power of the United States is by the Constitution vested in a supreme 
court and in inferior courts established by Congress. The highest judicial officer is the 
Chief Justice. All the judges of the supreme and inferior courts hold their offices during 
life or good behavior. The jurisdiction of these courts extends to all causes arising under 
the Constitution, laws and treaties of the United States. The right of trial by jury is 
granted in all cases except the impeachment of public officers. Treason against the United 
States consists only in levying war against them or in giving aid and comfort to their 
enemies. Nor can the charge of treason be established against any person except on the 
concurrent testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act. 

The Constitution further provides that full faith shall be given in all the States to the 
records of ever>' State; that tlia citizens of any State shall be entitled to the privileges of 
citizens in all the States; that new territories may be organized and new States admitted 
into the Union on conditions of equality with the old; that to every State shall be guar- 
anteed a republican fonn o f government; and that the Constitution may be altered and 
a:nended whenever such alteration or amendment shall be proposed by a two-thirds majority 
of both Houses of Congress and ratified by three-fourths of the legislatures of all the 
States. In accordance with this last provision, fifteen amendments have been made to 
the Constitution. Most important of these are the articles which guarantee religious free- 
dom, change the method of electing President and Vice-President, abolish slavery and for- 
bid the abridgment of suffrage on account of race or color. 

A CRITICISM OF THE CONSTITUTION. 

It is a theme of tlie greatest importance, now that more than a century' of time has 
elapsed since the adoption of the Constitution, to inquire into its effectiveness, and more 
pcxi ticularly to note its defects in practical application as the fundamental law of the Ameri- 
can people. Among the latter may be noticed first of all the too extensive power and domi- 
nation of the President. A President of the United States, once elected and inaugurated, 
becomes for the time a more powerful ruler, a more absolute monarch we might say, than is 
the occupant of any of the enlightened thrones of Europe. It is clear in the light of the 
retrospect that the framers of the Constitution did not intend that the President should be a 
temporary sovereign in the sense that he has become in practice. A second evil relates to 
the same office, and this pertains to the manner of the President's election. The will of 
the people is not fairly and well expressed by the cumbrous intervening electoral college 
pro\aded for in the Constitution. The Presidential election in the United States is not suf- 
ficiently popular and direct. The choice of the chief magistrate should be like evers' other 
function of the government — of the people, for the people and by the people — according to 
the aphorism of Lincoln. This it cannot be so long as the complicated and machine- 
like electoral college is interposed as the agent and organ of the quadrennial election. 



EPOCH OF NATIONALITY. 263 

In the third place, it is clear in the retrospect that the fathers erred in fixing the tenn 
of the Presidency at four, instead of six or seven years. The extension of the term 
to the latter period should of course imply ineligibility to reelection, thereby assuring to the 
people an administration totally free from the prevalent intent, manner and method of pre- 
paring for a reelection of the incumbent and the maintenance of his partisans in office. 
Nothing can be more disastrous to the integrity of the national government than its conver* 
sion by the President and his party into a machine for his reelection. On the other hand 
it may be truly said that the period of four years is hardly sufficient for the establishment 
of a given administration and the attestation of its policy. 

Among the powers of the Presidential office is that of appointing a cabinet This idea 
sprang partly out of the exigencies of the case, and was partly caught from the existing 
system of Great Britain. The American method has virtually proved a failure. The error 
lies in the fact that the responsibility of American cabinet officers appertains to the Presi- 
dent, instead of to Congress. In this regard the English system is greatly superior to that 
of the United States. The President appoints certain of his own partisans to be what are 
called his constitutional advisers. As a matter of fact, they become simply the head-men 
of his party retinue. They have and can have no independent advice to give to the admin- 
istration. They are virtually the President's men. The various secretaries have no power 
of originating policies and presenting and defending the same before Congress; nor have the 
people any check upon objectionable cabinet officers. It is within the power, and unfortu- 
nately within the practice, of American Presidents to keep in office at the head of important 
cabinet departments men whom four-fifths of the American people would join in ejecting 
from their places. The abuse which has arisen in this respect under our Constitution is 
serious and deep-seated. 

CRITICISM OF THE CONGRESSIONM SYSTEM. 

As to the Senate of the United States, there is a great and radical error in the Consti- 
tution of the body in that the members are chosen by the States, as it were in their official 
capacities, instead of by the people. The Senators are elected by the legislatures of the 
several States. The manner of senatorial elections has in many instances become corrupt 
and disgraceful to the extent of filling the Senate Hall of the United States with men far 
below the grade of statesmen. 

But the more crying evil does not lie in the dangerous methods employed in senatorial 
elections, but rather in the fact that all the States, great and small, are, under our Consti- 
tution, made equal in the upper House of Congress. Rhode Island and Delaware have two 
Senators each, and so have New York, Ohio and Texas. The system is undemocratic, un- 
republican. It is against the genius of American institutions. It contradicts the doctrines 
of the Declaration of Independence. The Senators instead of being chosen by the people 
of Senatorial districts, laid off according to area and population, and with little or no regard 
for State lines, are elected by the local legislatures of the different States, two for each, with- 
out regard to their magnitude and importance. The Senate of the United States is, there- 
fore, not a representative body. It offends the spirit and principle of popular government, 
and if we mistake not the system which now prevails under the Constitution will not stand 
the ordeal of public opinion in the times to come. 

As to the House of Representatives, the system of election is sufficiently popular and 
equitable. The error in this respect is the too frequent recurrence of Congressional elec- 
tions. Three years, instead of two, should be the minimum for the repetition of those 
yartisan agitations which now biennially sweep the country to the distraction of industrial 



264 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



enterprises, the confusion of all arts and progress, the eiubittenneut of the public mind, 
and the jubilee of demagogues. In all of these particulars it were possible under oru 
Constitution to make amendments which should conduce greatly to the civil and political 
advantage of the American people. 

/ ELECTION OF THE FIRST PRESIDENT. 

In accordance with the provisions of the Constitution and a resolution of CongieaSi 
the first Wednesday of January, 1789, was named as the time for the election of a President 
In this matter the people had but one voice. 
All eyes were turned instinctively to the man 
who should be honored with the chief magis- 
tracy of the United States. The election 
was held, and early in April the ballots of 
the electors were counted in the presence of 
Congress. George Washington was unani- 
mously chosen President and John Adams 
Vice-President of the new republic. ' 

On the 14th of the month Washington 
received notification of his election and 
departed for New York. His route thither 
overland was a constant triumph. Marj-land 
welcomed him at Georgetown. Philadelphia, 
by her executive council, the trustees of her 
university, and the officers of the Cincinnati, 
honored him as their guest. How did the 
people of Trenton exult in the presence of 
the hero who twelve years before had fought 
their battle! There over the bridge of the 
Assanpink they built a triumphal arch, and John adaks. 

girls in white ran before singing and strewing the way with flowers. Arriving at Eliza- 
bethtown, he was met by the principal officers of the government and welcomed to the 
capital where he was to become the first chief magistrate of a free and grateful people. 
Thus came he to old New York, and after a few days of rest and preparation was ready to 
take upon himself the duties of the Presidential office. 




CHAPTER XX. 



FIRST THREE ADMINISTRATIONS. 




was on the 30th of April, 1789, that Washington was 
inaugurated first President of the United States. The 
new government was to have begun its existence oa 
the 4th of March; but the event was delayed by un- 
foreseen circumstances for nearly two months. The 
inaugural ceremony was performed on the balcony of 
the old City Hall, on the present site of the Custom. 
House, in Wall Street. Chancellor Livingston of New 
York administered the oath of office. The occasion was 
observed with great rejoicings throughout the city and 
the whole country. The streets and housetops of New 
York were thronged with people; flags fluttered; can- 
non boomed from the battery. As soon as the public 
ceremony was ended Washington retired to the Senate- 
chamber and delivered his inaugural address. The 
organization of the two Houses of Congress had 
ilready been efiected, so that the inauguration of the President completed the ceremony of 
instituting the new government under the Constitution. 

That government was, however, at the outset embarrassed with many and serious 
iifliculties. They who had opposed the adoption of the Constitution now became a party, 
cavilling at the new order of things and in particular at the measures of the administration. 
By the treaty of 1783 the free navigation of the Mississippi had been guaranteed to vessels 
of the United States. Now the jealous Spaniards of New Orleans hindered the passage of 
American ships. The people west of the Alleghanies looked to the great river as the 
natural outlet of their commerce and the duty was devolved on the government of pro- 
tecting them in their rights and making good their expectations of the future. 

On many parts of the frontier the Indians, for good reason dissatisfied with their dis- 
placement from their ancient hunting-grounds, were hostile and did not hesitate to make 
war on the American frontiersmen. As to financial credit, the United States had none. 
In the very beginning of his arduous duties Washington was prostrated with sickness. For 
several weeks he was confined to his couch, and when at length he was measurably 
restored the evidences of rapidly approaching old age were still more distinctly seen upon 
him. In the interim of his sickness the business of government was much delayed. 

It was not until September that the first important measures were adopted by the new 
administration. On the loth of that month an act was passed by Congress instituting a 
department of foreign affairs, a treasury department and a department of war. As mem- 
bers of his cabinet Washington nominated Jefferson, Hamilton and Knox ; the first as 
Secretary of Foreign Affairs, the second of the treasury and the third of war. In accordance 

(265) 



266 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



with the provisions of the Constitution a Supreme Court was also organized, John Jay 
receiving tlie appointment of first Chief Justice. With him were joined as Associate Justices 
John Rutleflge, of Soutli Carolina ; James Wilson, of Pennsylvania ; William Cushing, 




WASHINGTON TAKING TIIK OATH AS PKKSIDENT. 



<rf Massachusetts ; John Blair, of Virginia ; and James Iredell, of North Carolina. Bdmonc i 
Randolph received the appointment of Attorney -general. 

THE ANTAGONISM BETWEEN JEFFERSON ;;nd HAMILTON. 
Nothing could more clearly illustrate the spirit and purpose of Washington than the 
aon-partisan character of the administration which he thus began. His thought was t 



i\ 



EPOCH OF NATIONALITY. 



267 




Randolph Hamilton. 

WASHINGTON AND HIS CABINET. 



Washmgton. 



avoid the division of the American people into parties, and to unite the best opinions and 
the best men of whatsoever views in the support of tlie government. At this time no two 
public men in America were more pitted against each other than Jefferson and Hamilton. 
The first represented those extreme democratic views which had prevailed in the Declaration 

of Independence. The other was 
the embodiment of extreme federa- 
listic opinion. The one wholly dis- 
trusted the new system of govern- 
ment because of its alleged mon- 
archical tendencies ; the other would 
fain have given to that government 
additional powers and prerogatives. 
The two leaders stood at the extremes 
of the political thought of the epoch, 
and yet Washington called them 
both into his cabinet ! He made 
no discrimination against either, but 
sought to utilize in support of his 
administration the talents and genius 
of both. 

At this time many constitutional 
amendments were brought forward, 
and ten of them adopted. Some 
of the States had accepted the Constitution on condition that certain amendments 
should be accepted. Other States, as North Carolina and Rhode Island, had refused 
to adopt until amendments which they desired should be approved by Congress. By 
the action of that body in accepting ten of the proposed amendments, the objections of the 
two jealous States were removed, and both, by ratifying the Constitution, came into the 
Union, thus completing the circle of the old Thirteen Colonies. 

Such were the first important acts of the Congress of 1789. On the 29th of September 
that body adjourned until the following January. Washington availed himself of the 
opportunity thus afforded to make a tour of the Eastern States. Accompanied by his 
secretaries he set out in his carriage from New York on the 15th of October, traversed 
Connecticut, and in nine days arrived at Boston. Everywhere on the route the affection 
-of the people, and especially of the Revolutionary veterans, burst out in unbounded 
applause. At Boston the President was welcomed by John Hancock, then governor of the 
State, and by the selectmen of the cit}'. No pains were spared that could add to the 
comfort and pleasure of the new chief magistrate. After remaining a week among the 
s»cenes associated with his first command of the American army he proceeded to Ports- 
mouth, and thence, with improved health and peace of mind, by way of Hartford to New 
York. 

QUESTIONS OF ETIQUETTE. 

It was at this time that many peculiar questions arose respecting the fonnalities and 
methods of administering the government. One of the most troublesome of these related 
to the ceremony and etiquette which ought to prevail at the presidential mansion. How 
should the President demean himself in his contact with officers and the people? How 
ehould he appear in public ? How often? What kind of entertainment should he give? 



268 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Who should be invited? What title should the President bear? With what fonnality 
should he be introduced ? In these matters there was no precedent to g^ide. For who had 
ever held such a station before ? The President must not on the one hand bear himself like 
a king surrounded with noblemen and courtiers, nor on the other must he degrade his high 
office by such blunt democratical manners as would render himself ridiculous and the 
presidency contemptible. 

Such situations as they occasionally arise in the movements of human society are not 
a little embarrassing. Washington, had he followed his own disposition and the suggestions 
of his antecedents as a Virginia planter, would doubtless have inclined much to a severe 
and lofty fonnality. It would perhaps not have been much against his habits and manners 
that the presidency should have a ' ' court ;' ' but the American people as a whole were in 
no humor for any courtly proceedings. This was particularly true in New England. It 
cx)uld not be said that the President was out of sympathy and touch with the masses of his 
countr}-men ; but he was by nature a severe and sedate man, one of the most unapproach- 
able indeed that modem history has produced. 

Washington sought the advice of Adams, Jefferson, Hamilton and others in regard to 
a suitable etiquette and ceremonial for the republican court. Strangely enough, John 
Adams favored much ceremony; naturally enough, Jefferson favored none at all. The latter 
said: "I hope that the terms Excellency, Honor, Worship, Esquire, and even IMr. , shall 
shortly and forever disappear from among us." Hamilton's reply favored a moderate and 
simple fonnality, and this view was adopted by Washington as both consistent with the 
spirit of the new government and accordant with his own tastes. In the meantime the 
question made its way into Congress, and that body declared that the chief magistrate 
should bear no title other than that of his office, namely, President of the United States. 
So with ceremonies few and simple the order of affairs and etiquette in the presidential 
office was established. 

Of all the questions of the hour the greatest and gravest and most threatening was that 
of the national debt. The United States had gone into the war of the Revolution without 
resources or credit. Year after year the indebtedness of the stniggling young republic had 
increased, and though the aggregate at the end of the war was small, as compared with the 
tremendous national debts that have accumulated during and since the Napoleonic wars, yet 
proportionally to the resources of the people the sum was sufficiently appalling. The 
total indebtedness of the United States at the close of the Revolutionary epoch, inclusive 
of the Revolutionary expenses of the several States, amounted to nearly eighty millions 
of dollars. 

The problem of meeting this comparatively immense obligation was devolved on 
Hamilton. He as Secretary of the Treasury adopted a broad and honest policy, and his 
genius at length triumphed over every obstacle. His plan for meeting the debt by the pro- 
cesses of refunding, revenue and payment was matured and laid before Congress at the 
beginning of the second session. The scheme embraced the feature of the assumption of 
,the several State war debts by the national government. The plan was based fundamentally 
upon the proposition that the debt should be fully and honestly paid. This policy once 
established tended strongly to create confidence on the part of capitalists, and it was not 
long until, by the measures of the Secretary, the country' was fully established and actual 
payment of the debt begim. 

As a means of augmenting the revenues of the government a duty was laid on the 
tonnage of merchant ships, with a discrimination in favor of American vessels. A system 



II 



EPOCH OF NATIONALITY. 



269 



of customs-duties was devised on all imported articles, with a view not only to revenue, but 

to the temporary protection and encouragement of American industries. Hamilton's 

financial schemes were violently opposed ; but his policy, which was supported by the 

Federal party and by the President, prevailed, and the credit of the American government 

was soon firmly established. 

A WAR WITH THE INDIANS. 

As said above, the financial scheme embraced the assumption of the debts of the 
several States by the national government, and this was coupled with the proposition to 
fix the place of the capital. In this matter there was strong competition, particularly 
between New York and Philadelphia. The latter was more centrally situated, but the 
claim of the former was strong and was generally supported by the representatives from 
New England. It was finally agreed to establish the seat of government for a period of ten 
years at Philadelphia and afterwards at some suitable locality on the river Potomac. 

The next important measure was the organization of the territory southwest of the 
Ohio. The region including the country west of the Carolinas and lying between what was 
afterwards known as the Territory of the Mississippi and the western extension of Virginia 
was included in the act of 1790, but was soon afterwards modified into the State of 
Tennessee. 

In the autumn of this same year a war broke out with the Miami Indians. Fort 
Washington on the present site of Cincinnati, had been built, and the capital of the north- 
west territory had been 
transferred to that place 
from Marietta. There 
General St. Clair established 
his headquarters as military 
governor. The Indians had 
relinquished their territorial 
rights in the surrounding 
country, but other tribes, 
refusing to recognize the 
treaty, came forward with 
claims to the ceded country 
and then went to war to 
recover their lost possessions. 
In the latter part of September, 1790^ 
General Harmar with fourteen hundred men 
set out on an expedition from Fort Wash- 
ington against the hostile Miamis. He 
destroyed several villages and wasted the 
GEN. HARMAR DEFEATED BY THE INDIANS. couutry as far as the Maumee, or North 

Miami. Hannar adopted the tactics of dividing his army into detachments, and thus ex- 
posed himself to the wiles of the Indians. Colonel Hardin, who commanded the Ken- 
tucky volunteers, was ambuscaded and his forces routed at an Indian town eleven miles 
from Fort Wayne, and on the 21st of October the main division was defeated by the 
savages, with great loss, at Maumee Ford. General Hanner was obliged to get out of 
the Indian country as best he could and make his way back to Fort Washington. The 
eituation at the close of the year was threatening, ominous indeed, in all the country north- 
west of the Ohio. 




2 70 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OE THE UNITED STATES. 



Meanwhile the government continued to wrestle with questions of finance and revenue. 
In the early part of 1791 an act was passed by Congress establishing the Bank of the United 
States. The measure originated with Hamilton, Secretary of the Treasurj-, and was vio- 
lently opposed by Jefferson and the Anti-Federal party. But federal opinion, which was 
essentially the assumption of large implied powers in the government of the United States, 
prevailed, and the bank was established without direct warrant of the Constitution. In the 
same year, namely 1791, Vermont, which had been for the last fourteen years an inde- 
pendent territory', adopted the Constitution, and on the iSth of Februar}' was admitted into 
the Union as the fourteenth State. The claim of New York to tlie jurisdiction of the prov- 
ince had been purchased in 1789 for thirty thousand dollars. At this time the first census 
of the United States, completed for the year 1790, was published, showing that the popula- 
tion of the country had increased to three million nine hundred and twenty-nine thousand 

souls. 

DISASTROUS DEFEAT OF GENERAL ST. CUIR. 

The defeat of General Harmar gave great uneasiness to the government, and more vig- 
orous measures were at once adopted for the repression of Indian hostilities. A new anny 
was organized, two thousand strong, and placed at the disposal of Governor St. Clair. On 
the 6th of September, 1791, the expedition set out from Fort Washington and was directed 
against the 
Miami confede- 
racy. On the 
night of Nov- 
ember 3d, St. 
Clair reached a 
point about a 
hundred miles 
north of Fort 
Washington, 
and encamped 
on one of the 
upper t r i b u - 
taries of tJK 
Wabash in 
what is now 
the southwest 
angle of Mercer 
county, Ohio 
Early on t h i 
following morn- 
ing his camp 

was suddenly attacked by an army of Indians numbering more than two thousand, undei 
command of the chief Little Turtle and several American renegades who had joined the 
savages. A terrible battle ensued, in which, after a conflict of three hours' duration, St. 
Clair was completely defeated. He lost fully one-half of his men and was fortunate to 
escape with the remainder. The fugitive militia retreated precipitately to Fort Washing- 
ton, where they arrived four days after the battle. 

If the defeat of Hannar had spread alarm, that of St. Clair brought terror. Everywhere 




SURPRISK OF CKNERAL ST. CL.'ilR. 



EPOCH OF NATIONALITY. 



271 



were gloom and sorrow. Hardly any battle of the Revolution had entailed greater loss of 
life and suffering. Even the national government at Philadelphia was for a while in con- 
sternation. The responsibility for the defeat was laid with some justice at the feet of 
General St. Clair, who had not conducted the campaign with the necessary vigilance and 
caution. For once the benignant spirit of Washington gave way to wrath. He was sitting 
at the table when the despatches announcing the ruinous defeat of the army were laid 
beside him. Presently he arose and retired to his ofSce. " Here," said he in a tempest of 
indignation, — "here in this very room I took leave of General St. Clair. I wished him 
success and honor. I said to him, ' You have careful instructions from the Secretary of 
War, and I myself will add one word — Beware of a surprise ! You know how the Indians 
fight us. Beware of a surprise !' He went off with that my last warning ringing in his 
ears. And yet he has suffered that anny to be cut to pieces, hacked, butchered, toma- 
hawked by a surprise, — the very thing I 
guarded him against ! How can he answei 
to his country ? The blood of the slain is 
upon him, — the curse of widows and 
orphans !" 

Mr. Lear, the secretary, 
in whose presence this storm 
of wrath burst forth, sat 
speechless. Presently Wash- 
ington grew silent. "What 
I have uttered must not ^o 
beyond this room," said he in 
a manner of great seriousness. 
Another pause of several 
1'//, minutes ensued, and then ht- 
continued in a slow and 
solemn tone, " I looked a1 
the despatches hastily, and 
did not note all the particu- 
lars. General St Clair shali 
have justice. I will receive 
him without displeasure, — he 
shall have full justice ! ''^ 

WASHINGTON RECEIVING THE REPORT OF ST. CLAIR'S DEFEAT. Notwlthstaudiug his CXCUlpa- 

tion by a committee of Congress, poor St. Clair, overwhelmed with censures and reproaches, 
resigned his command, and was succeeded by General Wayne, whom the people had 
named Mad Anthony. 

It was not long until Kentucky followed Vermont into the Union. The population of 
the former territory had now reached seventy-three thousand. Only seventeen years before 
Daniel Boone, the hardy hunter of North Carolina, had made his way across the mountains 
and settled with his companions at Boonesborough. Harrodsburgh and Lexington were 
founded about the same time. During the Revolutionary period the pioneers were con- 
Btantly beset by the savages. Kentucky gained the name of the Dark and Bloody Ground. 
It was not until after the expedition of George Rogers Clarke in 1779 that the frontier 
became comparative! v secure. In the years following the treaty of 1783 thousands of immi^ 




272 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



grants arrived annually. Meanwhile Virginia relinquished her claim to the territory, and 
on tlie ist of June, 1792, Kentucky was admitted into the Union. 

Thus the first quadrennium of the American government drew to a close. The Con- 
stitution was silent in regard to the eligibility of a President for reelection. The people, 
however, in their sovereign capacity decided in favor of continuing the administration of 
Washington. Accordingly in the autumn of 1792 the Father of his Country, now in the 
sixty-first year of his age, was again unanimously chosen to the Presidency ; as Vice-Presi- 
dent John Adams was also reelected. 

TROUBLES OF THE SECOND ADMINISTRATION. 

History' had reser\'ed, however, for the second administration of Washington many 
vexatious complications and serious troubles, particularly in the foreign relations of the gov- 
ernment. Western Europe was now in an uproar. The French Revolution had broken 
out coincidently with the institution of the new American goveniment, and was running its 
dreadful course. The French democracy, liberated by its own exertion from the thraldom of 
centuries, had arisen against the existing order, and after three years of unparalleled excesses, 
had tried, convicted and beheaded the King. The Jacobins were rampant. The French mon- 
archy was abolished. Citizen Genet was sent by the new French republic as minister to 
the United States. On his arrival at Charleston, and on his way to Philadelphia he was 
greeted with the greatest enthusiasm. The anti-Federal or Republican party had watched 
the course of the French Revolution with sympathy and delight, seeing, as they believed, in 
the same the European counterpart of the American war for independence. Citizen Genet, 
making the most of his popularity, soon began to abuse his authority by fitting out priva- 
teers to prey on the commerce of Great Britain. He planned an expedition against Louis- 
iana, and although the President had proclaimed neutrality, began to demand an alliance 
of the American government with France. 

The situation was peculiar, critical. It was not long since France, in a manner as 
irregular as it was generous, had come to the aid of the American Revolutionists. The 
French alliance had been the mainstay of the patriots in the darkest days of their straggle 
for independence. War between France and Great Britain had resulted from this open sym- 
pathy and support of the American cause. All this must needs have produced in the minds 
of the democratic fathers an immense prejudice in favor of France and against Great Britain. 
The situation in 1793 was such that the United States must almost out of the nature of the 
case join hands with France, whatever might be lier course and policy. 

It was therefore in great measure against the sentiment of the people that Washington 
and his cabinet finnly refused the demands of Citizen Genet, held faithfully to the existing 
treaty with Great Britain, and declined the proposed warlike alliance with the French. At 
this the audacious ambassador threatened to appeal to the people of the United States 
against the government In this conduct, so much in violation of the principles of interna- 
tional intercourse. Genet was sustained and encouraged by the anti-Federal party. For a while 
the government was menaced and endangered. But Washington stood unmoved in the midst 
of the clamor, declared the conduct of the French minister insulting to the sovereignty of 
the United States, and demanded his recall as a person not acceptable to the American gov- 
ernment. The Republican authorities of France heeded the demand, and Citizen Genet 
was superseded by Citizen Fouchet, who showed himself to be a man of greater equanimity 
and steadier temperament than his predecessor. 



EPOCH OF NATIONALITY. 273 

POLITICAL DISSENSIONS IN THE CABINET. 

Unfortunately, the spirit of partisanship had now measurably prevailed over the plau 
and purpose of Washington. It had been the intention and policy of the President to know 
no party in his administration. But the party had come, and the government became 
greatly embarrassed by political dissensions in the cabinet. From the beginning, indeed, the 
Secretaries of State and the Treasury had maintained towards each other an attitude of im- 
placable political hostility. The divergence between Hamilton and Jefferson was one of 
thought and constitution. They difiFered fundamentally in their concepts of society and 
government. The intense democracy of the one was set against the intense Federalism of 
the other. Hamilton believed in a vast and orderly organization of society on the general 
plan of the British government. It does not appear that he believed in monarchy as a 
theory, or that he favored its reinstitution in America — though he was vehemently charged 
with this purpose by his political opponents. Hamilton sought rather to give to the Ameri- 
can republic solidity, regularity, permanence, firmness of prerogative, and in particular 
whatsoever implied powers were requisite for its own maintenance against either domestic 
insurrection or foreign violence. Jefferson on the other hand was broadly and radically 
democratic. He believed that, on the whole, governmental systems had been the bane of 
liberty and the curse of the human race. He would fain have little government and great 
local freedom. He would run all risks of anarchy and disintegration rather than incur the 
danger of a centralized despotism. 

The reader may well perceive the difficulty which a President would experience in at- 
tempting to get on smoothly with two men of so great ability and such antagonistic princi- 
ples occupying the two principal seats in his cabinet. Doubtless the trouble was intensified 
by the natural disposition of both secretaries to gain an ascendancy over the mind of the 
President. It was in this posture of affairs that Hamilton and Jefferson became the heads 
of rival parties in the government. The financial measures of the former were attacked 
with vehement animosity by the latter, and the policy of Jefferson in his relations and duties 
as Secretary of Foreign Affairs was the subject of much bitter criticism from Hamilton's 
•cathing pen. 

The breach between the rivals grew wider and wider. Washington's influence was 
hardly sufficient to prevent an open break in his cabinet. So great were the abilities and 
so valuable the experience of the two secretaries, and so pronounced was the patriotism of 
each that the services of neither could be spared without serious detriment to the adminis- 
tration. Both officers were in high esteem by their fellow-citizens, and justly so; for no 
other men of the eighteenth century had reached a higher level of statesmanlike abilities 
and devotion. Both had insisted on the reelection of Washington to the Presidency. 
Gradually the spirit of party prevailed in the administration, and Washington himself 
became recognized more and more as a Federalist. Jefferson, without ceasing to sympathize 
with the President in his responsibilities and in most of his public measures, nevertheless 
drew off, and in January of 1794 resigned his office and retired to private life at Monti cello. 
A year afterwards Hamilton also retired from the cabinet, and was succeeded by Oliver 
Wolcott, of Connecticut. 

THE WHISKEY INSURRECTION. 

The year 1794 was marked by a serious domestic disturbance in western Pennsylvania, 
known as the whiskey insurrection. The trouble seems to have originated, in part at least, 
in the democratic agitations which had attended the coming of Citizen Genet from France. 
The government, in the hope of improving its revenues, had in 1791 imposed a tax on all 



274 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



ardent spirits distilled in the United States. While Genet was at Philadelphia he and his 
partisans had used the whiskey tax as an argument for inciting the people, especially those 
of the distilling regions, to hostility against the existing legislation and resistance of the 
collectors of revenue. 

At length an open insurrection broke out. Washington issued two proclamations 
warning the insurgents to disperse and obey the laws; but instead of doing so, they fired 
open and captured tlie officers of the government. The President found it necessarj- to 

send a strong militar}- force under General Henry 
Lee into the rebellious districts in order to restore 
order and enforce the law. With the approach 
of this force the rioters took counsel of discretion 
and dispersed. The sequel showed that the in- 
surrection had been a political 
rather than a social or civil 
outbreak; for the anti-Federa- 
lists were in the majority in 
the distilling region and the 
whiskey income-tax was a 
measure of the Federal party. 
After the defeat of General 
St Clair and the destruction 
of his army the government 
must needs take measures for 
the protection of the north- 
west territory and the sup- 
pression of the hostile Indian 
tribes. The latter were com- 
CAiTURE OF THE WHISKEY-TAX COLI.ECTORS. biucd iu wh?t was known as 

the Miami confederacy. General Wayne, on taking command in the west, organized as 
soon as practicable a force of three thousand men. In the fall of 1793 he began a campaign 
into the Indian countrj' and soon reached the scene of St. Clair's defeat. There he 
built a stockade named Fort Recovery, and then pressed on to the junction of the Au 
Glaize and the Maumee in the present county of Williams, Ohio. At this place Fort 
Defiance was built and garrisoned. Wayne then descended the Maumee to the rapids, 
from which place he sent proposals of peace to the Indians who were in council only 
a few miles away. 

WAVNE'S VICTORY OVER THE INDIANS. 

Among the ablest chieftains of the native races of the Ohio Valley was that Little 
Turtle whose name and deeds enter so largely into the frontier history of the epoch. Like 
Tecumtha, he was able to understand when to fight and when to refrain from fighting. At 
the great council on the Maumee he advised that a treaty of peace be made with the 
whites on the best tenns that might be obtained; but the rash majority were for battle, 
and the council so decided. On the 20th of August Wayne marched against the savages, 
and came upon them where the present town of Waynesfield stands. Here he attacked the 
Red men without delay, and routed them with terrible losses. He then compelled the 
humbled chieftains to purchase peace by ceding to the United States all the territory' east 
of a line drawn from Fort Recovery to the mouth of the Great Miami. The campaign 




EPOCH OF NATIONALITY. 275 

was crowned with complete success; but it was the last of the public services of Anthony 
Wayne. Remaining for a while in the Indian country, he embarked on L,ake Erie to 
return to Philadelphia; but iu December of 1796 he died on board the vessel, and was 
buried at Presque Isle, Pennsylvania. 

As the eighteenth century drew to a close, Western Europe seemed given over to the 
ferocity and horror of universal war. It was fortunate for the United States that the 
broad atlantic rolled and swelled between. Otherwise it would perhaps have been impos- 
sible that our new republic should not be embroiled in the common struggle. The 
prudence and probity of Washington held back hard against the tendency which would 
have drawn his country into the vortex. It was the fact of maritime commercial relations 
which seemed most likely to involve the young nation in the common fate of war. 

Very little was Great Britain disposed to regard the interests, rights and wishes of the 
United States while she prosecuted her warlike enterprises against the French. As early as 
November of 1793 the British King issued secret instructions to privateers to seize all 
neutral vessels that might be found trading in the West Indies. The United States had no 
notification of the purpose of England in this respect, and the high-handed outrage fell upon 
American trading-vessels without warning. The commerce of the United States to the 
value of many millions of dollars was swept from the sea by a process differing only in name 
from highway robbery. But for the temperate spirit of the government the country must 
have been plunged at once into war. 

Prudence, however, prevailed over passion, and instead of a declaration of hostilities 
Chief Justice Jay was sent, in the spring of 1794, as envoy extraordinary to demand redress 
and justice at the hands of the British government. Contrary to expectation, his mission 
was successful, and in the following November an honorable treaty was added to that of 
1783. The tenns of settlement, however, were exceedingly distasteful to the anti-Federal 
partisans of France in America, and they determined to prevent its ratification. The excite- 
ment in the country rose to a high pitch of bitterness and passion. Every argument and 
motive which ingenuity and prejudice could supply was eagerly made and repeated beforq 
the people. Discontent was the order of the day. Public meetings were held, and oratorg 
harangued the multitudes. In New York a copy of the treaty was burned before the 
governor's mansion. In Philadelphia there were similar proceedings. 

Washington, standing serenely at the helm of State, was assailed with incendiary 
invectives and slanders. Never in his whole career had he been subjected to a like storm 
of malice, indignity and shameless animadversions. In one instance his house was 
approached by a mob who hootea, threw stones and clubs in the manner of madmen at the 
official residence. But the President, believing the late treaty to be just in its main pro- 
visions and earnestly hoping to avoid a war, stood his ground, and the treaty was ratified. 
In June of 1795 the new compact was accepted by the Senate and signed by the President. 
It was specified in the treaty that Great Britain should make ample reparation for the 
injuries done by her privateers, and surrender to the United States certain western posts^ 
which until now had been held by English garrisons. 

TROUBLE WITH THE ALGERINE PIRATES. 

It was an important matter at this epoch to settle the international boundary between 
the United States and Spain on the side of Louisiana. This work was accomplished by a 
treaty in October, 1795. The Spanish king gave a guarantee to the Americans of the free 
navigation of the Mississippi, just as England had done in the treaty of independence. 



276 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Less honorable by far was the compact made at this time with the kingdom of Algiers. 
For a long time Algerine pirates had infested the Mediterranean. Probably since the times 
of Pompey the Great that inland ocean had never been free from the depredations of the 
African freebooters of the deep. They preyed upon the commerce of all civilized nations 
alike, and those nations had chosen to purchase exemption from such ravages by the ruinous 
policy of paying to the Dey of Algiers an annual tribute. 

In consideration of the tribute the Dey agreed (with astonishing magnanimity!) that his 
pirate ships should confine themselves to the Mediterranean and sliould not attack the 
vessels of such nations as made the payment. At this time, however, and with the purpose 
of injuring her rival, France, Great Britain winked at an agreement with the Dey, by which 
the Algerine sea-robbers were turned loose on the Atlantic. Once afloat in those broad 
waters, the pirate-ships made little discrimination among the victims of their piracy ; and 
American commerce suffered greatly with the rest. The government of the United States 
in this juncture of affairs deemed it prudent to purchase safety and exemption by the pay- 
ment of the shameful tribute. 

In the summer of 1796, Tennessee was admitted into the Union as the third new State. 
Six years previously North Carolina had surrendered her claims to her territory west of the 
mountains in the same manner as Virginia had done in the case of Kentucky. At that 
time, namely in 1790, Tennessee contained a population of thirty-five thousand ; but witliin 
the following five years the number was more than doubled. The first inhabitants of Ten- 
nessee, as will be recalled by the reader, were fugitives from the wrath of the royal governor 
of Carolina, against whom they had revolted in the early days of independence. They 
were of that hardy race of pioneers to whom the perils of the wilderness are as nothing 
provided the wilderness is free. By the addition of the two States southwest of the Ohio, 
more than eighty-three thousand square miles of territory were brought under the dominion 
of civilization. 

The democratic hostility to Washington passed away with the pa.ssion in which it was 
engendered. Few things in history, indeed, are more surprising than the ascendancy which 
he to the end of his official career continued to e.xercise over the minds of his countrymen. 
His integrity had in these late years of his life, as well as in the times of the Revolution 
and back to the days of his youth, been tested by ever\- ordeal to which human character 
may be subjected. True, in the House of Representatives during the last two sessions of 
his administration, there had been a clear anti-Federal majority against him and his policy ; 
and yet the House continued the support of his measures. Even the provisions necessary 
to carry into effect the hated treaty with Great Britain were made by that body, though the 
vote was close. So powerful were the President's views and wishes in determining the 
actions of the people that Jefferson, writing to James Monroe at Paris, said: "Congress have 
risen. You will see by their proceedings the tnith of what I always told you, namely that 
one man outweighs them all in influence over the people, who support his judgment against 
their own and that of their representatives. Republic.uiism resigns its vessel to the j^ilot" 

WASHINGTON'S FAREWELL ADDRESS. 

In the beginning of a government like that of the United States many things must be 
left to establish themselves by custom, trial and precedent. This was particularly true in 
the case of our own country-, for the Constitution was comparatively brief, and the nature 
of the goveniment was such as to forbid explicit details on many important points. One 
question of wide and far-reaching interest was the eligibility of the incumbent President to 
reelection. At the close of Washington's first tenn this was decided in the afl&rmative by 



EPOCH OF NATIONALITY. 277 

a kind of common consent. The question of a second reelection remained, however, to be 
considered in the year 1796. The second administration drew to a close. Should Wash- 
ington be chosen for a third term or should some other be taken in his place ? Popular 
opinion was in favor of the continuance of the President in office. He was strongly 
solicited to pennit the use of his name in candidature for a third election, but he would noL 
His resolution had been taken to end his public career with the close of his second term. 
With him the evening of life drew on and rest was necessary. 

Accordingly in September of 1796 Washington issued to the people of the United 
States his farewell address — a document crowded with precepts of political wisdom, prudent 
counsels and chastened patriotism. Perhaps no other communication has ever been sent to 
a free people in which so m.uch wisdom, devotion and unselfish counsel was given as in this 
the last address of the Father of his Country. 

As soon as Washington's determination to retire from the Presidency was known the 
political parties marshalled their forces and put forward their champions. John Adams 
appeared as the candidate of the Federal and Thomas Jefferson of the anti-Federal party. 
Antagonism to the Constitution, which had thus far been the chief question dividing the 
American politicians and statesmen, now gave place to another issue — whether it was the true 
policy of the United States to enter into intimate relations with the republic of France. 
The anti-Federalists or Republicans said Yes ; that all republics have a common end, and 
that Great Britain was the common enemy of them all. The Federalists said No ; that the 
American republic must mark out an independent course among the nations and avoid all 
foreign alliances. On that issue John Adams was elected to the Presidency ; but Mr. Jeffer- 
son having the next highest number of votes became Vice-President. For according to the 
old provision of the Constitution the person who stood second on the list of those voted for 
for the Presidency was declared the second officer in the government. 

JOHN ADAMS, THE SECOND PRESIDENT. 

It was thus decided that the Federal administration upheld and promoted by Washing- 
ton during the first eight years of our national existence should be continued under his 
successor. John Adams was a native of the town of Braintree, Massachusetts, where he 
was bom on the 19th of October, 1735. He was the great-grandson of that Henry Adams 
who, emigrating from Great Britain in 1640, founded in America a family which was 
destined to be made famous by many illustrious names. Eight sons of the elder Adams 
settled around Massachusetts Bay. One of these, the grandfather of the President, made 
his home in that part of Braintree afterwards called Quincy. The father of John Adams 
was a Puritan deacon, a selectman of the town, a farmer of small means and a shoemaker. 
The son received a classical education, being graduated at the age of twenty from Harvard 
College. For a while he taught school ; but finding that vocation to be, as he expressed it, 
a school of affliction, he turned his attention to the study of law. In this his chosen pro- 
fession he soon became eminent, removed to Boston, engaged with great zeal in the 
controversy with the mother country and became in a short time a recognized leader of 
public opinioru 

From this time forth the services of Adams were in constant demand both in his 
native State and in the successive Colonial Congresses. He was a member of the celebrated 
committee appointed to draw the Declaration of Independence ; and in the debates on that 
instrument was its chief defender. He was an able jurist, well versed in the principles of 
international law, and during the last years of the Revolution served his country as ambas- 
sador to France. Holland and Great Britain. He was the first minister of the United 



27S PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

States to the mother country- after the recognition of American independence. From this 
important station he returned in 1788 to be elected to the Vice-Presidency under the new 
Constitution. In this high office he served by the side of Washington for eight years and 
was then chosen as his successor to the Presidency. 

The beginning of the administration of Adams was a time of trouble and alarm both 
national and international. The anti-Federal party in the United States, now beginning 
to take the name of Democratic, constituted both in and out of Congress a powerful and 
well-organized opposition to the government The minister of the French republic was at 
this time M. Adet, who had succeeded Fouchet. His business in the United States 
appeared to be principally the securing of a league, defensive and offensive, against Great 
Britain. The President and Congress stood firmly on the doctrine of neutrality which had 
been advanced by Washington as the true policy of the United States. 

Adet, failing with the government, began to make inflannnatory appeals to the people, 
among whom he found a great and audacious following. The French Directory meanwhile 
g^ew insolent, and began to demand an alliance. The treaty which John Jay had con- 
cluded with England was especially complained of by the partisans of France. On tht 
loth of March, only six days after the inauguration of Adams, the Director}' issued instruc- 
tions to French men-of-war to assail the commerce of the United States. Soon afterwa^d^ 
Mr. Pinckney, the American minister at Paris, was ordered to leave the territon,- of France 

WAR WITH FRANCE. 

Such proceedings were the equivalent of a declaration of war. The President immedi- 
ately convened Congress in extraordinan- session and preliminary measures were taken to 
repel the aggressions of the French. Elbridge Gerry and John Marshall were directed to 
join Mr. Pinckney in a final effort for a peaceable adjustment of the pending difficulty, but 
the effort was fruitless. The Directory of France would not receive the American ambassadors 
except upon condition that tlic\- would pledge the payment into the French treasur\- of a 
quarter of a million dollars. Then it was that Pinckney made answer with the aphoristic 
declaration that the United States had millions for defence^ but not a cent for tribute / The 
envoys were then ordered to leave the country, but Gerrj-, who was an anti-Federalist, was 
at length permitted to remain. These events occupied the summer and fall of 1797. 

War with France was now anticipated as a certainty. Congress began to make pro- 
vision for the emergency, and, in the early part of 1798, passed an act completing the 
organization of the army. Washington j-fe--, ' , ' "■■.. 

was called from the retirement of his old 
age and appointed commander-in-chief. ' _ ■ 

He accepted the position on the two con- ^ •', '~^'?' -- 

ditions that he should not be obliged to . * 

take the field except in case of actual in- 

▼asion, and that he should have the right '^ '^ ' 

to name his own subordinates. Alexandt 1 
Hamilton was chosen first major-general. ; ^.^ 

A navy of six frigates, besides many priva- "-^.-^Sl^^- 
tears, had been provided for during the TT^^^B9^ 

previous )'ear and a national loan had been engagement of thk constellation and the 
authorized. The patriotism of the people insurgent. 

was at length thoroughly aroused. Even the strong sympathy of the anti-Federalist party 
for the cause of Republican France was not sufficient to prevail against the sentiments 
of the people stung by the affronts and injustice of the French Director)-. 



./' 



/ 




NAPOIJ'.ON AMI MAKIii LOUISK AT Fu.N TAI.NKBI.KAli. 



(279J 



28o PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

The existing treaties with France were promptly annulled and vigorous preparations 
made for the impending war. The American frigates put to sea, and in the summer and 
fall of 1799 did good service for the commerce of the couutrj'. Commodore Truxton in the 
ship Constellation won distinguished honors for his flag and inflicted great injury upon the 
enemy. On the 9th of February, while cruising in the West Indies he attacked the 
Insurgent^ a French man-of-war carr}ing forty guns and more than four hundred seamen. 
A desperate engagement ensued, and Truxton though inferior in guns and men gained • 
complete victory. A year later he fell in with another frigate called the Vengeance^ and 
after five hours' battle in the night would have captured his antagonist but for a stonn and 
the darkness. The cruise by its success added greatly to the reputation of the American 
flag on the high seas. 

Meanwhile the organization of the provisional army went forward and was soon com- 
pleted. The commander-in-chief established his headquarters at Philadelphia, where he 
remained for five weeks in consultation with Generals Hamilton and Pinckney. Such 
measures were devised as were deemed adequate to the defence of the honor of the nation. 
Washington then retired to Mount Vernon, leaving the greater part of the responsibility to 
be borne by Hamilton. 

The news of these warlike proceedings was soon borne to France. The relation 
between the two republics was as unnatural as it was strained. The question might well 
be asked why these two friendly peoples, lately fighting shoulder to shoulder in the trenches 
before Yorktown, should now take up anns in a fratricidal war. The shrewd Talleyrand, 
French Minister of Foreign Affairs, seeing that his dismissal of Mr. Monroe and General 
Pinckney had given mortal offence to the American people, signified to Vans Murray, 
ambassador of the United States to Holland, that if President Adams should send anothef 
minister to Paris he would be cordially received. This hint was transmitted by Murray to 
the .A.merican President, who eagerly seized the opportunity to extricate the country' from 
apprehended war. On the i8th of February, 1799, he sent a message to the Senate nomi- 
nating Mr. Murray as Minister Plenipotentiar)' to the French Republic. The nomination 
was confirmed and the ambassador was ordered to proceed at once to France. With him 
were joined, by the action of the American Senate, two other envoys, Oliver Ellsworth and 
William R. Davie. These two hastened to Amsterdam to join Murray on his important 
mission to the French capital. 

NAPOLEON'S FRIENDLY ATTITUDE TOWARDS AMERICA. 

Ry this time, however, the French Director)' had itself gone into oblivion. The youth- 
ful Napoleon Bonaparte, rising suddenly as a military hero on the dazzled vision of the 
French republic, had displaced the governing Directory and made himself First Consul. 
More wise than his predecessors and associates, he immediately sought peace with the United 
States. He saw clearly enough that the impending war would, if prosecuted, result in an 
alliance between America and England — a thing most unfavorable to the interests of France. 
Thereby the strong friendship already becoming traditional between France and America 
would be amiulled, the political and social dislike of the Americans for the mother country 
obliterated, and the whole replaced with what might well seem to him an unnatural league 
of the lately rebellious States of the New World with the monarchy which had tried to op- 
press and destroy them. 

Bonaparte was confident that peaceful overtures on his part would be met with favor. 
When the three American ambassadors — Murray, Ellsworth and Davie — reached Paris m 
the beginning of March, 1800, they were well received by the First Consul, and negotia- 



EPOCH OF NATIONALITY. 281 

tions were at once opened for peace. In the following September all difficulties were hap- 
pily terminated with the new treaty, entirely satisfactory in its provisions to the people of 
the United States. In all his relations with our country — ^whatever may have been his 
underlying motives of action — Napoleon acted the pait of a consistent and honorable 

ruler. 

LAST DAYS AND DEATH OF WASHINGTON. 

Before the war-cloud was scattered by the new treaty with the French republic^ 
(A.merica was called to mourn the loss of Washington. On the 14th of December, 1799, 
after an illness of only a day, the venerated chieftain passed from among the living. It ap- 
pears that though Washington was by nature of an unusually vigorous constitution, his 
vital forces failed, or began to fail, at a comparatively early period of his life. The hard- 
ships and anxieties of the Revolution told heavily upon him. It is probable that at heart 
the Father of his Country was capable of feeling the greatest distress on account of the suf- 
ferings and sorrows of his countrymen. At all events, on his retirement from the Presi- 
dency, just after the completion of his sixty-fifth year, he was already an aged man; but he 
returned to Mount Vernon in happy spirits, and began by personal supervision the restora- 
tion and improvement of his estates. It was his custom and joy to ride abroad each morn- 
ing in the personal superintendence of the various enterprises whereby he hoped soon to 
make Mount Vernon the ideal and resting place of his declining days. 

Two days before his death, though the weather was bleak and threatening, Washington 
rode forth to a distant part of the estate, and did not return until after dark. Meanwhile a 
cold rain had come, and the General was wet and chilled in the December evening. An 
attack of tonsilitis, to which disease he had been subject at intervals for many years, super- 
vened, and on the following day he was seriously sick. The physician was called in, and, 
acting after the folly of the times, bled his illustrious patient almost to exhaustion. During 
the next day he sank away, and in the evening fell into that peaceful slumber from which 
neither the affectionate voice of his countrymen nor the blare of the trumpet of war might 
ever wake him more. 

The event touched all hearts with inexpressible sorrow. The people instinctively put 
on the garb of mourning. Congress on receiving the intelligence went in funeral procession 
to the German LutLeran Church, where General Henry Lee, the personal friend of Wash- 
ington, delivered thav touching and eloquent oration in which the expression, " First in 
war, first in peace, and 5rst in the hearts of his fellow-citizens, ' ' was recorded. Throughout 
the civilized world the memory of the Father of his Country was honored with appropriate 
ceremonies. To the legionj of France the event was announced by Bonaparte, who paid a 
beautiful tribute to the virtues of "the warrior, the legislator, and the citizen without re- 
proach." As the body of Washington was laid in the sepulchre, the voice of partisan ma- 
lignity that had not hesitated to assail his name was hushed into everlasting silence, and the 
world with unco-^^ered head agreed with Lord Byron in declaring the illustrious dead to have 
been among warriors, statesmen and patriots — 

" The first, the last, the best— 
The Cincinnatus of the West." 

PEACE, PROSPERITY AND PERMANENCE. 

Great was the relief to the public mind when the threatening cloud of war with France 
passed by. It could not be said that with the masses of the people the prospect of such a 
war was ever entertained with favor. The recollection of the recent great good of the 
French alliance was too recent to pass readily from the brain and heart of the people. 



2S2 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

There was, therefore, a sense of relief when the clouds parted and the light of returning good- 
will streamed through. Meanwhile the administration of the elder Adams and the eigh- 
teenth century drew to a close together. In spite of domestic dissensions and foreign 
alarms, the new republic had greatly grown in strength and influence. The second census, 
that of iSoo, showed that the population of the countrj^, including the blacks, had in- 
creased to over five millions. The seventy-five post offices reported by the census of 1790 
had been multiplied to nine hundred and three. The exports of the United States had in- 
creased from twenty millions to nearly seventy-one millions of dollars. Better than all, the 
pennanency of the new political order under the Constitution as the supreme law of the 
land had become an established fact and was cheerfully recognized by the people. 

In December of 1800 Congress for the first time assembled in Washington City, the 
aew capital of the nation. Virginia and ]\Iaryland had ceded to the United States the Dis- 
trict of Columbia, a tract ten miles square, lying on both sides of the Potomac. But the 
part given by Virginia was afterward re-ceded to that State. The city which was designed 
as the seat of government was laid out in 1792, and in i8cK) the population had reached an 
aggregate of about eight thousand five hundred. 

The political question now arose as to which party and policy should obtain preponder- 
ance in the government. It would appear that with prudent management and unanimity 
'.he Federalists might have remained in the ascendant ; but that policy had now incurred 
oiuch popular reprobation. There were dissensions in Adams's cabinet. Much of the re- 
cent legislation of Congress had been unwise and perhaps partisan. The Alien law, by 
which the President was authorized to send out of the country any foreigners whose 
presence might be reckoned prejudicial to the interests of the United States, was especially 
odious. The Sedition law, which punished with fine and imprisonment the freedom of 
speech and of the press when directed abusively against the government, was denounced by 
the opposition as an act of tyranny. Partisan excitement ran high. It was clear that the 
destinies of the American government were to fall exclusively into the hands of the one 
party or the other. 

John Adams and Charles C. Pinckney were put forward as the candidates of the Fed- 
eralists, and Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr of the Republicans, or Democrats. The 
latter were triumphant. In the electoral college Jefferson and Burr each received seventy- 
three votes ; Adams sixty-five, and Pinckney sixty-four. In order to decide between the 
Democratic candidates, the election was referred to the House of Representatives. After 
thirty-five ballotings the choice of that body fell on Jefferson, and Burr, who was now 
second on the list was declared Vice-President. After controlling the government for the 
first twelve years of its existence the Federal party, thus defeated, passed from power never 
to be restored. 

CHARACTER OF JEFFERSON. 

The reader may readily discover the natural evolution which was be;rinning in the 
political histor)' of the government. The elder Adams had served as Vice-President t« 
Washington. Jefferson had served in a like relation with Adams. Both had been long dia- 
riplined in public life. Both had represented the government abroad in its most critical in- 
ternational relations. There was clearly a disposition on the part of the people to choose 
the greatest and strongest men for the highest official trusts. 

There was also a gravitation towards a broader democracy. This was expressed in the 
election of Jefferson over Adams. The new chief magistrate was one of the most intel- 
lectual men of the centurj' — one of the greatest patriots ; but he was by no means a mili- 



EPOCH OF NATIONALITY. 



283 



tary leader. Jefferson was born in the county of Albemarle, Virginia, on the 2d of April, 
1743. Of his ancestry history has preserved no record other than the name of his father, 
Colonel Peter Jefferson, who in the pre-revolutionary period rose to note by his native abili- 
ties and force of character. The son had excellent advantages of early training, both at 
home and in a private school established by an exiled Scottish clergyman. Afterwards he 
completed his education at William and Mary College. He then entered upon the study ot 
law, and soon rose to distinction. He became in early manhood deeply absorbed in the ris- 
ing controversy with the mother country, and by his radical views in the House of Bttr- 
gesses contributed much to fix the sentiments of that body against the arbitrary' measure* 
of the English ministry. 

The provincial council of Virginia, however, could not limit the activities and fame of 
Jefferson, and he was sent to the Continental Congress. His coming was anxiously awaited 
in that body in 1776; for his fame as a thinker and Democrat had preceded him. To his 
pen and brain the authorship of the Declaration of Independence must be awarded. During 
the struggles of the Revolution he was among the most distinguished, active and inicoinpro 
mising of the patriot 
leaders. After the war 
was over he was sent 
abroad with Adams and 
Franklin to negotiate 
treaties of amity and com- 
merce with the nations of 
Europe. He was then 
appointed minister pleni- 
potentiary of the new 
republic to France. From 
this high trust he was 
recalled to become Secre- 
tary- of State under Wash- 
ington. In 1796 he was 
elected Vice-President, 
and in 1800 President of 
the United States. 
V Though of aristocratic 

birth, Jefferson was the most extreme Democrat 
of his time. He was first of his social class to 
substitute pantaloons for knee breeches, and to 
fasten his shoes by leather strings instead of by 
silver buckles. When elected President he set 
aside the custom of his predecessors, who rode ^^^^^^^''^ «"'^-^- ™ «'^ iNAuouRATior. 
to the place of their inauguration in a magnificent court-like carriage drawn by foni 
horses, and accompanied by liveried servants, but proceeded thither on horseback and un- 
attended. Arriving at the place, he hitched his horse to a rack, and going into the 
Capitol delivered an address that occupied less than fifteen minutes. So opposed was he 
to ostentation and the homage paid to greatness, that he abolished Presidential levees, and 
kept the date of his birth secret in order that it might not be celebrated. The American 
decimal system of coinage, the statute of religious freedom in Virginia, the Declaration of 




284 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Independence, the University of" Virginia, and the Presidency of the Union are the 
immutable foundations of his fame. \/ 

The tendency towards a party and partisan administration of the government has 
already been noted as one of the early features in the political history of our republic. At 
the beginning of his administration Jefferson transferred the chief offices of the govern- 
ment to members of the Democratic party. This policy had in some measure been adopted 
by his predecessor; but the principle was now made universal. Such action was justified 
by the President and his adherents on the ground that the affairs of a republic will be best 
administered when the officers hold the same political opinions. Congress had passed with 
the elections of 1800 into the hands of a Democratic majority, and one of the first acts of 
that body was to abolish the system of internal revenue. The Alien law and the Sedition 
law which had been directed against foreigners and the freedom of the press were also re- 
pealed. But the territorial legislation of Jefferson's first terra was the most important of all 
the measures of his administration. 

The work of dividing and organizing the great region known as the territory northwest 
of the River Ohio was undertak^n in the year 1800. In the first place a line was drawn 
through that territory from the mouth of the Great Miami river to Fort Recovery', and 
thence to Canada. * Two years afterward the country east of this line was erected into the 
State of Ohio and admitted into the Union. The portion west of the line, embracing the 
present States of Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and a part of Minnesota, was or- 
ganized under the name of the Indiana territory. Vincennes, on the Wabash river, was 
made the capital, and General William Henry Harrison received the appointment of territo- 
rial governor. About the same time the Mississippi territory', extending from the western 
limits of Georgia to the great river, was organized. Thus another grand and fertile district 
of a hundred thousand square miles was reclaimed, at least potentially, from primitive bar- 
barism. 

THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE. 

More important still was the purchase of Louisiana. The reader will recall the roman- 
tic and adventurous incidents by which the vast region lying west of the Mississippi had 
fallen first to France and afterwards to Spain. In the year 1800, very soon after his acces- 
sion to power. Napoleon Bonaparte compelled Spain to make a secret cession of this vast 
territory to France. The First Consul then prepared to send an army to New Orleans for 
the purpose of establishing his authority. All this was done with no ill-will to the United 
States, but with the ulterior design of overbalancing the interests of Great Britain and 
North America. 

The goveniment of the United States, however, remonstrated against such a proceed- 
ing. France at this time was threatened with multiplied wars in Europe, and Bonaparte, 
perceiving the difficulty of maintaining a colonial empire at so great a distance, authorized 
his minister to dispose of Louisiana by sale. President Jefferson appointed Mr. Livingston 
*nd James Monroe to negotiate the purchase. The circumstances were such as greatly to 
embarrass the President, for his views of the limited powers of the American government 
under the Constitution were of a kind to forbid the executive purchase of new territory. 
But the great opportunity brooked no delay, and on the 30th of April, 1803, the tenns of 

•When the territorial division was first effected, the dividing line setting off Ohio was run from the mouth 
at the Kentucky river \.o Fort Recovery, but afterwards, when the territorial boundary of Ohio was determined, 
the mouth of the Great Miami instead of the mouth of the Kentucky was taken as the point of origin — a change 
which considerably affected the territorial limits of the two States lying east and west of the Una 



EPOCH OF NATIONALITY. 285 

transfer were agreed on by the agents of the two nations. The sura of eleven million two 
hundred and fifty thousand dollars was fixed as the price of the cession, and Louisiana was 
transferred to the United States. * In another agreement, which was signed on the same 
day, it was stipulated that the United States should assume the payment of certain debts 
due from France to American citizens; but the sum thus assumed should not, inclusive of 
interest, exceed three million seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Thus did the vast 
domain west of the Mississippi, embracing an area of more than a million square miles, 
pass under the dominion of the United States. 

In this great territorial transaction four nations — France, the United States, Great 
Britain and Spain — were concerned. The question of boundaries of the ceded territory 
was of far-reaching importance. As to the eastern limit, all four of the contracting parties 
—or rather the parties concerned — agreed that it should be the Mississippi River from its 
source to the thirty -first parallel of latitude. On the southeast the boundary contended for by 
the United States, Great Britain and France was the thirty-first parallel from the Mississippi 
to the Appalachicola, and down that river to the gulf. From this line, however, Spain 
dissented, claiming the Iberville and Lake Maurepas and Pontchartrain ; but she was obliged 
to yield to the decision of her rivals. On the south, by the consent of all, the boundary was 
the Gulf of Mexico as far as the mouth of the river Sabine. The southwestern limit was 
established along the last named stream as far as the thirty-first parallel ; thence due north 
to the Red River; up that stream to the one-hundredth meridian from Greenwich; thence 
north again to the Arkansas; thence with that river to the mountains, and thence north with 
the mountain-chain to the forty-second parallel of latitude. 

Thus far all four of the nations were agreed; but the United States, Great Britain and 
France — again coinciding — claimed the extension of the boundary along the forty-second 
parallel to the Pacific Ocean; and to this extension Spain for several years refused her 
assent; but in the treaty of 1819, by which Florida was ceded to the United States, the 
objections of Spain were fonnally withdrawn. The claim, therefore, of the United States, 
to the extension of Louisiana to the Pacific, though disallowed by Spain for sixteen years, 
was finally conceded by her, and a true map of the cession so represents the purchase. In 
fixing the nothem boundary, only the United States and Great Britain were concerned, and 
the forty-ninth parallel from the Lake of the Woods to the Pacific was established as the 
International line. 

OTHER IMPORTANT RESULTS OF THE JEFFERSON ADMINISTRATION. 

This great territorial acquisition was the most important event of the JefFersonian 
administration. Of the southern portion of the new acquisition the Territory of Orleans 
was soon organized with the same limits as the present State of Louisiana. The remainder 
of the vast cession continued to be called the Territory of Louisiana, or the Louisiana 
Purchase. By the cession the free navigation of the Mississippi was no longer matter of 
dispute, since that river lay henceforth within the territories of the United States. Very 
justly did Mr. Livingston remark to the French minister, as they arose from signing the 
treaty: "We have lived long, but this is the noblest work of our whole lives." ! 

In another respect Jefferson's administration may be noted with interest and favor It 
was during this time that the jurisprudence of the new Republic became regular and well 
established in its principles. In 1801 John Marshall was confirmed as Chief Justice of the 
United States. His appointment marked an epoch in the judicial history of the country. 

* Bonaparte accepted in payment six per cent, bonds of the United States, payable fifteen years after date^ 
Be also agreed not to sell the bonds at such a price as would injure the credit of the American government 



286 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 




In the colonial times the English constitution and coini'?on law had prevailed in America, 
and judicial decisions were based exclusively on precedents established in the English 
courts. With the establishment of the new republic in 1789, it became necessar>' to 

modify to a certain extent the principles of 
jurispmdence and to adapt them to the altered 
theor>' of government. This great work was 
undertaken in the days of Chief Justice 
Jay ; but it remained for Chief Justice Mar- 
shall to establish on a firm and enduring 
basis the noble structure of American law. 
For thirty-five years he remained in his 
high office, bequeathing to after times a great 
number of valuable decisions in which the 
principles of American jurisprudence are set 
forth with unvarj'ing clearness and invincible 
logic. 

Mention has alieady been made of the 

compact which most of the European nations 

had been constrained to make with the Algerine 

,, 5^x^ ^^ " ^^?«'^fcM!S^»^5- ^". P'^'"^*^^^- T^^^ "^^v republic of the United 

\ ^ " ^^"^^^^^^P^ "^ States at first yielded to what seemed to be a 

shameful necessity and paid tribute to the Dey 
of Algiers, in order that American com- 
merce might be exempt from capture; but the 
exemption was not observed. American merchantmen continued to be annoyed and 
attacked b\- the freebooters of the Mediterranean. All of the Barbary States — as the Moor- 
ish kingdoms of northern Africa are called — had adopted the common plan of levying 
tribute on the commerce of the civilized nations. 

WAR WITH THE BARBARY STATES. 

The leaders of this great maritime conspiracy were the Emperors of Morocco, Algiers 
and Tripoli. It became necessary that the young American government should do some- 
thing for self- protection. Accordingly, in 1S03, Commodore Preble, of the American navy, 
was despatched to the Mediterranean to protect the merchantmen of the United States. 
His squadron proceeded first against Morocco; but the frigate PhiladclpJiia^ under Captain 
Bainbridge, was sent directly to Tripoli. When nearing that city, Bainbridge gave chase 
to a Tripolitan pirate which fled for safety into the harbor. The Philadelphia, attempting 
to pursue ran upon a reef of rocks near the shore and was captured by the Tripolitaus. 
The officers were treated with some respect but the crew were sold as slaves. The Emperor 
Yusef was greatly elated at his unexpected success. 

Though the Tripolitaus had taken an American man-of-war they were not able to keep 
their prize. In Februarj' of 1804 Captain Decatur, sailing from Sicily in a small vessel 
called the Intrepid, came at nightfall in sight of the harbor of Tripoli, where the Philadcl- 
bhia was moored. The Intrepid being a Moorish ship was either unseen or unsuspected by 
the enemy, so that Decatur in the darkness was able to enter the harbor and come alongside 
of the Philadelphia. He quickly lashed the two ships together, sprang on deck with hi? 
daring crew of only seventy-four men and killed or drove overboard every Moor on the 
vessel. The frigate was immediately fired and Decatur and his men, returning to the 



CHIEF JUSTICE MARSHALL. 



EPOCH OF NATIONALITY. 2S7 

fntrepid, sailed out of the harbor by the light of the flames. The Tripoli tan batteries 
opened upon the American ship, but not a man was lost and only four were wounded. 

The exploit of Decatur was only the beginning of a series of movements by which 
the Algerine pirates were destined to be virtually extenninated. In July of 1804 Com- 
modore Preble arrived at Tripoli with a fleet and began a siege which lasted till the 
following spring. The town was frequently bombarded and many of the enemy's ships 
destroyed, but the emperor Yusef would not come to terms. Meanwhile it was ascertained 
by the Americans that Hamet, Yusef 's brother, who had been deposed from the throne of 
Tripoli, might be induced to aid in the war against the existing government. Hamet was 
it this time in command of an army of Mamelukes in Upper Egypt. To him General 
William Eaton, American consul at Tunis, was sent with proposals of an alliance against 
the usurping Yusef 

Hamet was not slow to accept the offer. He detached from his army a fine body of 
.\rabian cavalry and seventy Greek soldiers and placed the same at the service of General 
Eaton. The latter set out from Alexandria on the 5th of March, 1805, and traversed the 
desert of Barca for a thousand miles. On the 25th of April he reached Derne, one of 
Yusef 's eastern seaports. This place was, with the aid of an American fleet, taken by storm, 
The attacking forces were made up of Arab cavalry, Greek infantry, Moorish rebels and 
American sailors serving on land. Perhaps the American flag never at any other time 
waved above so motley an assemblage ! Emperor Yusef now became thoroughly alarmed 
and made overtures for peace. His offers were accepted by Mr. Lear, the American consul- 
general for the Barbary States, and a treaty was concluded on the 4th of June, 1805. 
Yusef agreed that the commerce of the United States should no longer be attacked in the 
Mediterranean waters, and this pledge in favor of the American flag was observed foi 
several years. 

DUEL BETWEEN BURR AND HAMILTON. 

While these events were taking place in the far east an incident occurred which will 
forever be memorable in our history. This was the killing of Alexander Hamilton by 
.\aron Burr, at that time Vice-President of the United States. The deed was done in a 
duel. As the first administration of Jefferson drew to a close Burr foresaw that the Presi- 
dent would be renominated and that he himself would not be selected as the candidate of 
his party for a second term. Burr was a proud and ambitious man who had long had his 
eye on the Presidency, and was determined not to be baffled. He, therefore, while still 
holding the office of Vice-President, became the Democratic candidate for governor of New 
York. From that position he would pass to the Presidency at the close of Jefferson's 
second tenn. 

But Hamilton's influence in New York was overwhelming, and Burr was defeated, 
H^s presidential ambition received thereby a stunning blow. From that day he detennined 
to kill the man whom he regarded, or pretended to regard, as the destroyer of his hopes. 
fJe accordingly sought a quarrel with Hamilton, and though the latter studiously tried to 
ivoid the difficulty he was drawn into the meshes, and Burr challenged him to mortal 
combat. Hamilton believed that to refuse to accept the challenge would, in the existing 
condition of public opinion, destroy his own influence and usefulness in his party and the 
nation. He accordingly accepted the challenge and met Burr at Weehawken, opposite New 
York, on the morning of the nth of July, and was there shot at the first discharge by his 
antagonist Hamilton for his part refused to fire, but when Burr's ball entered his breast 
and he was staggering to the fall he involuntarily clutched his pistol and it was discharged 



288 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



— not however, in the direction of his murderer. Thus, under the savage and abominable 
custom of duelling, the brightest intellect, the most capacious understanding in America 
was put out in darkness. 

As had been foreseen, Jefferson was renominated and reelected by his party to the Presi- 
dency. For Vice-President, in the election of 1804, George Clinton, of New York, was 
chosen in place of Burr. The government in all its departments continued under the con- 
trol of the Democratic party. In the year following the election that part of Indiana Ter« 
ritory called Wayne County was organized under a separate territorial government, with 
the name of Michigan. It was in this year, namely in the spring of 1805, that Captains 




DUKL Dl.TWliKN AI.KXANDKR HAMIi.TON AND AARdN BURR. 

Lewis and Clarke, acting under orders of the President, set out from the falls of the Mis- 
souri River with a party of thirty-five soldiers and hunters to cross the Rocky Mountains 
«nd explore Oregon. 

Many months were consumed in this the first overland expedition perfonned by white 
men across the continent. Not until November did the company reach its destination. 
For two years, through forests of gigantic pines, along the banks of unknown rivers, and 
-down to the shores of the Pacific, did the adventurers continue tlieir explorations. The 
•tory of the journey, of its perils and hardships, might well remind the reader of the daySi 
of De Soto. After wandering among unknown tribes of barbarians, encountering grizzly^ 
bears more ferocious than Bengal tigers, escaping perils by forest and flood, and traversing 
a route of six thousand miles, the hardy company, with the loss of but one man, returned 
to civilization, bringing with them authentic geographical reports of the vast domains of 
the west. 

BURR'S SCHEME TO MAKE HIMSELF DICTATOR OF THE SOUTHWEST. 

The triumph of Aaron Bnrr in the death of Hamilton proved to be the end of ht« 
political hopes. A g^eat popular indignation arose over the event which, when the cir- 



EPOCH OF NATIONALITY. 289 

etnnstances of the duel were once known, was seen to be nothing less than a murder. Burt 
was constrained to flee for refuge into the remote South. At the opening of the next session 
of Congress he returned to the capital and was permitted to preside over the Senate until 
the expiration of his term of office. With that event he delivered a valedictory, went to 
the west, travelled through several States, and took up a residence with an Irish exile 
named Harman Blannerhassett, who had laid out an estate and built a mansion on an island 
in the Ohio just below the mouth of the Muskingum. Here it was that Burr made m 
wicked and treasonable scheme against the peace and happiness 0/ his country. He con* 
•pired to raise a sufficient military force for the invasion of Mexico. His plan was to wrest 
that country from the Spaniards, detach the western and southern States from the Union, 
make himself dictator of a southwestern empire, and perhaps subvert the government of 
the United States. 

At these plans and conspiracies Burr labored assiduously for two years ; but his pur- 
poses were suspected. In accordance with a proclamation of the President the military 
preparations which were making at Blannerhassett' s island were broken up, and in February 
of 1807 Burr himself was arrested and taken to Richmond to be tried on a charge of treason. 
Chief Justice Marshall presided at the trial, and the country was agitated not a little. Burr 
conducted his own defence, and was finally acquitted. The verdict of the jury was "Not 
guilty for want of sufficient proof ' ' The escape of the prisoner, however, was narrow, and 
«nder an assumed name he fled from the country. Returning a few years afterward, he re- 
«umed the practice of law in New York city. There he lived to extreme old age, and died 
in September of 1836 alone and in abject poverty. 

The condition of the nations of Western Europe had now become such as to draw the 
United States strongly towards the vortex of war. Great Britain and France had come to 
death-grips on both land and sea. The British navy had achieved supremacy, while the 
French were victorious by land. It became the policy of Great Britain to ward oS" foreign 
commerce from the coasts of France. That kind of commercial intercourse known as neutral 
trade suffered greatly ; for thus would Great Britain injure her rival. The American merchant 
marine in common with that of other nations, though engaged in innocent trade, was assailed 
on the high seas, kept from its destination, injured or destroyed. Great Britain struck 
blow after blow against the trade which France would fain carry on with foreign neutral 
nations, and Napoleon began to retaliate with equal energy and vindictiveness against the 
commercial relations of Great Britain. The measures of the two belligerent governments 
took the form of blockade — that is the surrounding of each other's ports with men-of-war — 
to prevent the ingress and egress of neutral ships. By such means the commerce of the 
United States which had within the last decade grown to be vast and valuable, while the 
European nations were fighting, was greatly distressed or swept to destruction. 

AMERICA SUFFERS BETWEEN CROSS-FIRES. 

The measures of the two hostile nations became more and more extreme. In May of 
l8o6 England declared the whole coast of France, from Brest to the Elbe, to be in a state 
of blockade. Neutral nations had no notice of the impending decree, and many American 
vessels approaching the French ports were seized and condemned as prizes. All this was 
done while the harbors of France were not actually, but only declared to be, blockaded. 
The rule of war is that a blockade in order to be binding upon neutrals must be effective, 
that is, maintained by an effective force of the navy of the hostile State declaring the 
blockade. 

This was not done by Great Britain, and Napoleon retaliated against his foe by issuing 
19 



290 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

a decree blockading the British Isles. By this measure the unsuspecting merchant ships of 
the United States were subjected to unwarranted seizure by the cruisers of France. In Jan- 
oarj' of 1807 the British government retaliated with a proclamation prohibiting the French 
coasting-trade. The idea was that France should be hermetically sealed against all inter- 
course with foreign States. The belligerents had no shadow of right to take such steps 
towards each other, but they proceeeded from one stage of arrogance to a greater, until the 
rights of neutral nations were not only disregarded, but treated with contempt. Of all 
■uch neutrals the nation that sufifered most was the United States. 

Another grievance, criminal in its character, was meanwhile revived by England, to 
the great distress of American commerce. This act related to trade with the colonies of 
France. At the beginning of the French and Indian war George II. had issued an edict 
forbidding neutral trade with the French colonies or with the provinces of any countr\- with 
which Great Britain might be at war. This edict was known as the Rule of 1756. Its 
arbitrary character and injustice were sufficient to condemn it in a moment in the court of 
any civilized nation ; but it has always been the policy of Great Britain to uphold advan- 
tageous abuses as long as possible. 

During the administration of Washington the Rule of 1756 had been applied by the 
mother country and complained of by the American government In June of 1801, in a 
treaty between England and Russia the fonner agreed to modify the rule in favor of conunon 
justice. The effect was beneficial to neutral commerce, particularly to that of the United 
States, which soon increased five-fold v/hile that of England declined in a nearly correspond- 
ing ratio. Great Britain has for centuries been exceedingly sensitive about her commercial 
supremacy. Seeing the growth of American commerce and the decline of her own, she 
chose in the summer of 1805 to revive by edict the Rule of 1756, and to declare it a part 
of the law of nations. The result, as had been foreseen, was that American commerce was 
virtually driven from the ocean and shrank suddenly into insignificance. 

RIGHT OF SEIZURE AND SEARCH. 

Next came another measure aggravating the injustice of Great Britain and provoking 
the anger of America. The English theory of citizenship has been that whoever is bom 
In England remains through life an English subject The privilege of an Englishman to 
expatriate himself — that is, to go abroad to throw off his allegiance to the British crown 
and to assume tlie necessary obligations of citizenship in another nation — is absolutely 
denied. The rule is "once an Englishman always an Englishman ; " and this principle the 
government of Great Britain in the first decade of our century undertook to enforce by 
searching American vessels and taking therefrom all persons suspected of being subjects of 
the British crown. 

One of the chief objects had in view in this iniquitous business was the prevention of 
Irish emigration to the United States. The Irish people had become enamored by report of 
tlie free institutions and boundless prospects of America, and were flocking hitlier in g^eat 
numbers. Something must, therefore, be done to stop the movement George III. and hia 
ministry marshalled forth the British theory of citizenship and set it up like a death's head 
at ever)' port of emigration. Every Irishman or Scotchman who should venture on board 
an American vessel would henceforth expose himself to seizure and impressment ; it was 
believed that not many would take so great a risk. 

The apprehensions of the emigrants were well founded ; for those who had the misfor- 
tune to be overtaken at sea were seized from under the American flag and without further 
Inquiry were impressed as marines in the British navy. To crowd the decks of their me»- 



EPOCH OF NATIONALITY. 



291 



of-war with unwilling recruits torn from home and friends was the end which the British 
King and ministry were willing to reach at whatever sacrifice of- national honor. One 
American ship after another was chased, overtaken and searched, until the hope of reaching 
the United States from Western Europe, that is, the hope of emigration, was almost extin- 
guished. Finally to these general wrongs was added a specific act of violence which kin- 
dled the indignation of the Americans to the highest pitch. 

On the 22d of June, 1807, the American frigate Chesapeake was hailed near Fortress 
Monroe by a British man-of-war called the Leopard. British officers came on board after 
their manner and demanded to search the vessel for deserters. The demand was refused 
and tne ship cleared for action ; but before the American guns could be charged the Leopard^ 
being already in preparation, poured in a destructive fire and compelled a surrender. Four 
men were taken from the captured ship, three of whom were afterwards proved to be Ameri- 
can citizens. Great Britian disavowed the outrage and promised reparation, but the promise 
was never fulfilled. 

It thus became necessary for the American government to adopt the policy of retalia- 
tion. The President, in the summer of 1807, issued a proclamation forbidding British ships 
to enter American harbors. On the 21st of December Congress passed the celebrated 
Embargo Act, by which as a measure of compulsion to hostile nations all American vessels 
were detained in the ports of the United States. The object was to cut off commercial 
intercourse with France and Great Britain. The act fell heavily upon those who were 
engaged in foreign commerce, and there was great complaint against the policy of the gov- 
ernment. The measure itself was of little avail, and after fourteen months of trial, the 
Embargo Act was repealed. Meanwhile, in November of 181 8, the British government 
published an "Order in Council," pro- 
hibiting all trade with France and her 
allies. Thereupon Napoleon issued his 
"Milan Decree," forbidding all trade with 
England and her colonies. By these gross 
outrages done to international law the com- 
merce of the United States was well nigh 
destroyed. 

ROBERT FULTON'S STEAMBOAT. 

It is interesting to turn from these dis- 
tressing foreign complications, involving as 
they do the ambitions and follies and crimes 
of governments, to note the progress of the 
individual mind in its work of ameliorating 
the condition of the world. While the 
country was still distracted with the Anglo- 
French commercial imbroglio Robert Fulton 
was engaged in the invention and construc- 
tion of the first steamboat. This event 
exercised a vast influence on the future 
development of the American nation. It was of the greatest importance to the people of 
the inland States of the Union that their rivers should be enlivened with rapid navigation. 
This without the application of steam was impossible. The steamboat thus came as one 
of the harbingers of civilization in the great valleys of the Ohio and the Mississippi. 




ROBERT FULTON. 



292 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



Fulton was an Irishman by descent, a Pennsylvanian by birth. His education in boy- 
hood was imperfect, but was afterwards improved by study at London and Paris. From the 
latter city he returned to New York, and there began the construction of a steamboat. 
Already his predecessors had done something in the application of steam to navigation. As 
early as 1786 a ferryboat at Philadelphia had been propelled back and forth across the Dela- 
ware by steam. In 1804 a steam craft capable of action was launched on the lake in what is 
flow Central Park, New York. It remained for Fulton, however, to bring the enterprise to 
a practical and successful issue. He invented an ungainly boat with a steam engine for 
propulsion, and invited his friends to go on board for a trip from New York to Albany. Otf 
the 2d of September, 1807, a crowd gathered at the wharf to witness the experiment. The 
word was given, and the boat did not move. Fulton went below. Again the word was 
given, and the boat vioved! She started up stream, and on the next day the company 
reached Albany in safety. For many years this first rude steamer, called the Clermont^ con- 
tinued to ply the Hudson. 

The second term of Jefferson in the Presidency drew to a close with the spring of 1809. 
The great change which had been wrought during his administration was the addition of 
territory. The area of the United States had been vastly extended. Burr's wicked and 
dangerous conspiracy had come to naught. Pioneers were pouring into the valley of the 
Mississippi. Tlie woods by the river shores resounded with the cry of steam. The foreign 
relations of the United States, however, were troubled and foreboding. Jefferson declined a 
third election, as Washington had done, and was succeeded in the presidential office by 
James Madison, of Virginia. For Vice-President, George Clinton, of New York, was ho» 
ored with reelection. 




CHAPTER XXL 




SECOND WAR WITH ENGLAND. 

' AMES MADISON, thus raised to the highest office in 
the gift of the American people, was another of those 
scholarly Virginia statesmen who constituted in the 
political jargon of aftertimes what was called the 
" Virginia Dynasty." The new chief magistrate was 
born in Fort Conway, Virginia, on the i6th of March, 
1 75 1. He was the eldest of twelve children. Like 
Jefferson, the boy Madison received his first educa- 
tional training in the school of a Scotch teacher, 
named Donald Robertson. Afterwards he became a 
student at Princeton, and was graduated therefrom in 
1772. For two or three years he devoted himself to 
scholastic pursuits, and, for a young man, became pro- 
foundly versed in such learning as the age offered to 

students. He entered public life in 1776 and espoused the popular cause with the breadth 

and fervor of a true democrat. Madison was a member of the Continental Congress, and 

afterwards a delegate to the constitutional 

convention of 1787. He was one of the 

makers and defenders of the Constitution of 

the United States. Under Jefferson he served 

as Secretary of State. His election to the 

Presidency he owed to the Democratic party, 

whose sympathy with France and hostility to 

Great Britain were well known. 

On the ist of March the Embargo Act 

was repealed by Congress,* and another 

measure adopted instead, by which American 

ships were pennitted to go abroad but were 

forbidden to trade with Great Britain. Mr. 

Erskine, the British minister to the United 

States, now gave notice that by the loth of 

June the "Orders in Council " so far as they 

affected the United States should be repealed. 

In the following spring Bonaparte issued a 

decree for the seizure of all American ships 

that might approach the harbors of France ; 

but this edict was soon annulled, and all restrictions on American commerce removed. 

The government of Great Britain, however, adhered to its former measures and sent ships 

of war to enforce the ' ' Orders in Council. ' ' 

*The Embargo Act was the subject of much recrimination and ridicule. The enemies of the measura 
derisively spelled the word backward, making it the O Grab me Act ! 

(293) 




JAMES MADISON. 



294 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



It now became evident that a crisis was at hand in the affairs of the United States and 
Great Britain. The government of our country had fallen completely under control of the 
party which sympathized with l^Vance. The American people, smarting under the insults 
of the mother countr>', adopted the motto of " Free Trade and Sailors' Rights." They had 
made up their minds to fight rather than endure any longer the wrongs which they had 
Buffered for fully ten years. The elections held between 1808 and 181 1 showed the drift 
of publi:: opinion. Tlie sentiment of the country ran to the effect that war at ever}- hazard 
was preferable to national disgrace. 

Tlie third census of the United States was taken in the spring of 1810. The populsk- 
tiou had now increased to seven million two hundred and forty thousand souls. Four nenj 




ELKSWATAWA TRYING TO CONJURE GENERAL HARRISON. 

States had been added to the original thirteen, and several of the territories were preparing 
ibr admission into the Union. 

HARRISON'S VICTORY OVER TECUMTHA. 
In domestic affairs everything went well with the new nation except the contact of 
civilization with the Indian races. The rapid march westward had aroused the jealousy 
of the red men, and Indiana Territory became the scene of a serious Indian war. 
The hostile tribes were led by the great Shawnee chief, Tecumtha (or Tecumseh), axid 
his brother, Elkswatawa the Prophet. These two sent messages to General Harrison, 



EPOCH OF NATIONALITY. 295 

and finally visited him at Vincennes to make known their grievances. The General 
received the Indians and consented to discuss the questions at issue. The Prophet, however, 
instead of proceeding at once to set forth his complaints, indulged in many singular antics 
with the intention, as he expressed it, of conjuring the white man, after which strange 
exhibition he paused and made an imperious demand that the United States surrender the 
lands which had been ceded by treaty with the several separate tribes. The alternative 
being war. General Harrison accepted the challenge and the council broke up with both 
parties resolved upon hostilities. The Prophet and Tecumtha proceeded immediately to 
collect their forces on the Tippecanoe, a few miles north of the present city of Lafayette. 
Thither General Harrison, the territorial governor, in command of the whites, had marched 
by way of the Wabash stations from Vincennes. 

Harrison reached the destined battle-ground and encamped there on the evening of 
the 6th of November, 181 1. Negotiations had been opened with the Indians, but the 
natives were treacherous, after their manner, and had plotted the destruction of the Ameri- 
cans. In the early morning of the 7th the savages, seven hundred strong, crept through 
the marshes to the east of Harrison's camp, surrounded his position and made an impetuous 
attack. The militia, fighting in the darkness, held the Indians in check until daylight 
and then routed them in several vigorous charges. On the next day the Americans burned 
the Prophet's town, not far away, and soon afterwards returned victorious to Vincennes. 
The campaign was so successful as to bring great reputation to General Harrison, and to 
lay the foundation for his future preferment to the Presidency of the United States. 

FIRST GUN OF THE WAR OF 1812. 

While peace was thus established by the sword in the Ohio valley, war had begun on 
the ocean. Great Britain and the United States renewed the conflict which it had been 
hoped was forever ended by the treaty of 1783. On the i6th of May, 181 1, Commodore 
Rodgers, commanding the frigate President^ hailed a vessel off the coast of Virginia. 
Instead of a polite answer he received a cannon ball in the mainmast Rodgers responded 
with a broadside and the enemy's guns were silenced. When light came with the morning 
the hostile ship was found to be the British sloop of war called Little Belt. The event pro- 
duced great excitement throughout the country. 

The engagement of the two vessels had been without law or declaration of hostility. 
In general the country still hoped for peace, but the hope was delusive. On the 4th of 
November the Twelfth Congress of the United States assembled. Though the Democrats 
■were in the ascendant, many of the members believed that hostilities might be avoided, and 
thus the winter passed without decisive measures. On the 4th of the following April it 
was deemed necessary to pass an act laying embargo for ninety days on all British vessels 
that might be found within the harbors of the United States. This comparatively mild 
measure was adopted in the hope that war, actual war, might be avoided. But Great 
Britain, heated in her conflict with France, would not recede from her hostile attitudes and 
methods. Her anger was so great that she was willing to engage in an irrational and unjust 
war with the American republic, and the time had come for the beginning of the struggle. 
Meanwhile, before the actual outbreak of hostilities, Louisiana, the fifth new State, was, on 
the 8th of April, 1812, admitted into the Union. Her population had at the time of 
admission reached seventy-seven thousand. 

On the 19th of June in this year a declaration of war was issued by Congress against 
Great Britain. Vigorous preparations were made for the conflict. It was ordered to raise 
twenty-five thousand regular troops and fifty thousand volunteers. The several States ware 



296 PEOPLE'S PIISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

requested to call out their militia contingents to the number of a hundred thousand. A 
national loan of eleven million dollars was authorized and General Henry Dearborn, of 
Massachusetts, was chosen commander-in-chief of the American annies. 

Though hostilities existed on the sea between the merchantmen and cniisers of the 
two nations, the actual war was begun in what was then the northwest of the United 
States. General William Hull, governor of Michigan Territory, led the first campaign, 
which pioved to be sufficiently disastrous. On the ist of June, 1812, he set out from 
Dayton, Ohio, with a force of fifteen hundred men. For a full month the anny toiled 
through the forests to the western extremity of Lake Erie. Ai riving 
at the Maumee, Hull attempted to send his baggage by water to 
Detroit, but the British at Maiden were on the alert and captured 
Hull's boat with everything on board. Nevertheless the Americans 
pressed on to Detroit, and on the 12 th of July crossed the river to 
Sandwich. 

At this point Hull received information that Mackinaw had fallen 
into the hands of tLe British. He, therefore, retraced his course to 
Detroit, and from this place sent back Major Van Home to meet a 
division of reinforcements which had arrived under Major Brush at 
the River Raisin. Tecumtha, chief of the Shawnees, had after the 





. . •Jte^ 







«ffir^^^^^*'"^M 


g 


••rTyM-lrtwy 


w 


5^^^ 



£1, 



scENK OK HULL'S battlc of Tippecanoe, in which he was not a participant, made his way 
CAMPAIGN, 1812. tQ Canada and associated himself with the British. The chief, learning 
of the advance of Van Home's forces, laid an ambush for them near a place called 
Brownstown and succeeded in destroying or dispersing the detachment. Colonel Miller 
with another division, however, attacked and routed the savages with great losses and 
then made his way to Detroit 

Meanwhile the British and Canadians under Governor Brock rallied at Maiden, and 
from that place advanced on the i6tli of August to lay siege to Detroit. The Americans 
were well prepared to receive the enemy. They lay in their trenches and awaited the battle 
during the British advance. When the latter were within five hundred yards Hull hoisted 
a white flag over the fort I Then followed a surrender the most shameful in the history 
of the United States. All the forces under Hull's command became prisoners of war. 
The whole of Michigan Territory was surrendered to the British. Hull was afterwards 
court-martialed for cowardice and was sentenced to be shot, but the President pardoned him. 

Thus inauspiciously for the United States began the second war with Great Britain. 
Three days after the surrender of Detroit the American frigate Constitution, commanded by 
Captain Isaac Hull, a man of very different mettle from the General, overtook the British 
Gtierriere off the coast of Massachusetts. The vessels manoeuvred for a while, the Consti- 
tution closing with her antagonist unti! at half-pistol shot she poured in a broadside, 
■weeping the decks of the Guerriere and deciding the contest at a single discharge. Oil 
the following morning the British vessel having become unmanageable was blown up, but. 
Captain Hull secured his prisoners and spoils and returned in safety to port. 
' CAPTURE OF THE BRIG FROLIC 

Such was tlie opening of the contest on the sea. On the i8th of October the Ameri- 
can man-of-war IVasp, under Captain Jones, fell in with a fleet of merchantmen off the 
coast of Virginia. The squadron was under convoy of a war vessel called the Frolic, cora- 
■landed by Captain Wliinyates. A terrible engagement ensued, lasting for three-quarters 
of an hour. Finally the American ship was brought alongside, and Jones's crew boarding 



EPOCH OF NATIONALITY. 



297 



the Frolic struck the British flag and captured the ship outright. Soon afterwards, however, 
the Poictiers^ a British seventy-four gun ship, hove in sight and bore down upon the 
victorious Americans. The Wasp was captured and the wreck of the Frolic retaken by the 
superior force of the enemy. 

After his work in the Mediterranean Commodore Stephen Decatur had returned to the 
American waters and was given command of the frigate United States. In this vessel he 
went on a cruise to the Canary Islands and a short distance from that group fell in with and 
captured the British war ship Macedonian. The loss of the enemy in killed and wounded 
was more than a hundred 



men. On the 12th of Decem- 
ber the ship Essex, under com- 
mand of Captain Porter, cap- ^ 
tured the Nocton, a British J 
packet having on board fifty- . 
five thousand dollars in specie. ^ 
On the 29th of the month the 
Constitution, now commanded 
by Commodore Bainbridge, 
overtook the British Java on 
the coast of Brazil. A furious 
battle ensued and after two 
hours of fighting the Java was 
reduced to a wreck. The 
British flag was struck and 
the crew and passengers num- 
bering upwards of four hun- 
dred were transferred to the Constitiction. What remained of the enemy's vessel was 
burned at sea. The news of these unvarying successes roused the enthusiasm of the 
American people to the highest pitch. 

As soon as practicable after the capitulation of Hull a new expedition was organized 
against Canada. On the 13th of October a force of a thousand men. under command of 
General Stephen Van Rensselaer crossed the Niagara River to capture Queenstown. The 
British had learned of the movement and stationed a force at the water's edge. This, how 
ever, was driven away and the batteries of the enemy on the adjacent heights were carried. 
In a short time the British rallied, but were a second time repulsed. Here it was that Gen- 
eral Brock, governor of Canada, was mortally wounded. The Americans, thus for the 
time victorious, entrenched themselves and awaited reinforcements; but no recruits came 
to the rescue; the British returned to battle and the Americans after losing a hundred and 
sixty men were obliged to surrender. At this juncture General Van Rensselaer resigned 
the command of the northern forces and was succeeded by General Alexander Smyth. 

The Canadian border became the scene of renewed hostilities. The Americans 
gathered in force at Black Rock, a few miles north of Buffalo, and on the 28th of November 
a detachment crossed to the Canada shore. This movement, however, was recalled by 
General Smyth as premature. A few days later a second crossing was undertaken, but 
was not effected, and the Americans went into winter quarters. It soon appeared that 
General Smyth was incompetent for the command. The militia became mutinous, and the 
General under charge of cowardice was deposed. Thus came the autumn of 181 2 and with 




CAPTURE OF THB FROUC. 



298 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



it tlie presidential election. Madison was chosen for a second term; but the Vice-Presidency 
passed from Clinton to Elbridge Gerry, of Massachusetts. 

DEFEAT AND MASSACRE AT RAISIN RIVER. 
Thus far the war had bccu fucblc and desultory. With the spring of 1813 the Ameri- 
can forces were organized into three divisions, known as the Army of the North, under 
General Wade Hampton; the Army of the Centre, under the commander-in-chief; the 
Army of the West, under General Winchester, who was soon superseded by General Har- 
rison. The last named division was first to move. In the early part of January Winches- 
ter set out in the direction of Lake Erie to regain the ground lost by Hull. On the loth of 
the mouth the advance came to the rapids of Maumee. A detachment then pressed forward 
to Freuchtown, on the river Raisin, captured the place, and on the 20th of the month were 
joined by Winchester with the main division. 

On the 22d of January, the Americans were assaulted by a British and Indian army, 
twent\-five hundred strong, under coinuiaud of General Proctor. The fight went against 

the Americans. Winchester was taken 
prisoner and sent word to his anny to 
capitulate. This done, the American 
wounded were attacked by the Indians 
and butchered after the manner of 
savagery'. The American prisoners were 
dragged off through untold sufferings 
to Detroit, where they were held until 
their ransom was effected by the govern- 
ment These two disasters, one in 1S12 
and the other in the following year, gave 
to the river Raisin an ominous memory 
initil the sun'ivors, and even their chil- 
dren, finally passed away. 

General Harrison now left in com- 
mand of the Army of the West, or of 
what remained of it, built Fort Meigs on the Maumee. Here he was besieged by a British 
army numbering two thousand, inclusive of the Indian allies imder command of Proctor 
and Tecuintha. Meanwhile General Clay, with a force of twelve hundred Kentuckians, 
had set out from his own State and was advancing to the relief of the fort. With the 
nunor of his coming the Indians in large numbers deserted and Proctor, thus weakened, 
abandoned the siege and retreated to Maiden. At the latter place the British were reinforced 
io nearly four thousand men and in July made a second expedition against Fort Meigs. 

GALLANT DEFENCE OF FORT STEPHENSON. 

The garrison of this fort, however, could not be drawn from the fortifications or driven 
Ont by battle. Proctor was at length obliged to file off with half his forces for an attack on 
Fort Stephenson, at Lower Sandusky — a place which seemed to the British General more 
accessible to assault. The fort was defended by only a hundred and sixty men under 
Colonel Croghan, a .stripling but twenty-one years of age. The event showed, however, 
that he had in him the instinct and passion of battle. On the 2d of Augiist, the confident 
British came on to storm the fort. They crowded into the trench, but the sequel showed 
■that Croghan had so planted his guns as to command the approach. When the trench was 




FOKT MUIGS. 



EPOCH OF NATIONALITY. 



299 



filled with men, the cannons were discharged and the attacking column was swept away 
almost to a man. The repulse was complete. Proctor at once raised the siege of Fort 
Meigs, and returned to Maiden. 

Thus far in the contest on our northwest border the advantage had been with the 
British, from the fact that they controlled Lake Erie. On that water they had a squadron 
of six vessels. It was now deemed necessary to gain control of the lake from the enemy, 
and the work was intrusted to Commodore Oliver H. Perry. His antagonist, the com- 
tnander of the British fleet, was Commodore Barclay a veteran from the wars of Europe. 
Perry equipped his vessels, nine in number, at Put-in-Bay, and was soon able, through the 
extraordinary energy which he displayed, 
to get afloat. On the loth of September 
the two squadrons met not far from land, 
and a battle at once ensued. 

The engagement was begun by the 
American squadron. Perry's flag-ship, the 
Lawrence^ leading the attack. Barclay's 
ship was the Detroit. The British vessels 
were fewer in number, but their guns had 
a longer range and were better served. 
The contest between the two flag-ships was 
desperate. The Lawrence was ruined, and 
the Detroit was almost wrecked. It became 
necessary for Perry to transfer his flag to 
another vessel. He accordingly got over- 
board into an open boat, and carried his 
pennant to the Niagara. With this power- 
ful vessel he immediately bore down upon the enemy's line, drove through the midst, 
discharging deadly broadsides to right and left. In fifteen minutes the British fleet was 
reduced to a state of helplessness. Perry returned to the floating hull of the Lawrence and 
there received the surrender of the enemy's squadron. He then sent to General HarrisoH 
his laconic despatch: " We have met the enemy and they are ours." 

The control of Lake Erie was thus gained by the A mericans, and a way opened for the 
invasion of Canada. On the 27th of September, General Harrison's army was carried 
across to Maiden. The British fell back before him as far as the river Thames, but there 
halted and prepared for battle. A field was chosen having the river on one side of the 
British position and a swamp on the other. Here, on the fifth of October, Proctor was 
attacked by Harrison and Shelby. 

DEFEAT AND DEATH OF TECUMTHA. 

In the beginning of the battle the British general fled. The regulars were broken by 
An attack of the Kentuckians under Colonel Richard M. Johnson. The Americans were 
thus enabled to turn against the Indians, who, to the number of fifteen hundred, had taken 
one of their favorite positions in the adjacent swamp. There Tecumtha had staked all on 
the issue of battle. For a while the war-whoop of the great chieftain was heard above the 
din of the conflict. Presently, however, his voice ceased to call to his warriors; for 
Tecumtha was no more. The savages, appalled by the death of their leader, fled ip 
despair, and the Americans were left completely victorious. So ended the campaign of 




COMMODORE PBRRY I.EAVING HIS FLAG-SHIP FOR 
THE NIAGARA. 



300 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



1813 in the west. All that Hull had lost in the previous year was regained, and much 

more taken. 

Tlie Indian races of the Mississippi valley had now, with good reason, come to dread 

the aggression and progress of the white race. They saw in the Americans a force before 

which their own people must recede into oblivion. From north to 
south the native tribes of the Ohio and Mississippi valleys were in 
a state of vigilant hostility. While Harrison's campaign in the 
northwest was under way, the Creek nation of Alabama rose in 
arms. In the latter part of August, Fort Minis, forty miles north 
of Mobile, was attacked and taken by the savages, who destroyed 
about four hundred people in their sudden insurrection. 

The governors of Tennessee, Georgia and Mississippi were 
obliged to make immediate and strenuous preparations for the 
repulse of the savages. The Tennesseeans under General Andrew 
Jackson were the first to rise to the rescue. The advance force 
of nine hundred men, led by General Coffee, first stnick the 
enemy at their town of Tallushatchee, burned it, and left not an 
the first blow of a desperate and bloody struggle. On the 8th 
battle was fought at Talladega, and the savages were again 
A third fight occurred on the Tallapoosa, at the Indian towa 




•CBNK OF THB CRKKK 
1813-I4. 



''--■•^% 



Indian alive. It was 
of November, a second 
defeated with heavy losses. 
of Autosse, where the 
natives were again dis- 
astrously routed. 

By these movements 
the daring Jackson had 
carried his forces far 
into the Indian country. 
Nor were his supplies 
tufBcient for such an 
expedition. His hungry 
men became mutinous, 
and were going to march 
homeward; but a mutiny ^"^^ 
among Jackson's men 
was a dangerous thing 
for the mutineers. The 
general set his men the 
example of living on 
acorns which he roasted 
^nd carried in his 
pockets. After this ex- 
hibition of endurance he 
threatened with death 
the first man who should 
■tir from the ranks ; and 
no man stirred ! By the middle of January Jackson was able 




DHPBAT OF THB INDIANS AT TALLAPOOSA. 



to renew hostilities. On 



the 22d of the month he gave the enemy battle at Mucfau, where the Tennesseeans were 



EPOCH OF NATIONALITY. 301 

again victorious. At Horse-shoe Bend, the Creeks gathered in force and made their final 
stand. On the 27th of March the Whites, under General Jackson stormed the breastworks 
and drove the Indians into the bend of the river. There huddled together a thousand 
Creek warriors, with the women and children of the tribe, met their doom. The nation 
was completely conquered, almost exterminated. 

CAPTURE OF TORONTO AND DEATH OF GENERAL PIKE. 

We may now return to the spring of 1813 and trace the movements of the Army of 
feis Centre under the commander-in-chief. On the 25th of April, in that year. General 
Dearborn embarking his forces at Sackett's Harbor, proceeded against Toronto. Ihia 
place was the. most important depot of supplies in British America. By this time an 
American fleet under command of Commodore Chauncey had obtained control of Lake 
Ontario. On the 27th of the month the American advance, seventeen hundred strong, 
tinder General Pike, landed near Toronto. The British were driven from the water's edge 
and their first batteries were carried by the Americans, who then rushed forward to storm 
the main defences. At that moment, however, the British magazine blew up with terrific 
violence. Two hundred men were killed or wounded by the explosion. General Pike 
himself was fatally injured. But the Americans continued the charge and the British were 
driven out of Toronto. Property to the value of a half million dollars was secured to the 
victors who were not very careful to use their victory as not abusing it. 

Meanwhile a counter movement was made by the British against Sackett's Harbor. The 
expedition, however, was not successful ; for General Brown, rallying the American militia, 
drove back the assailants. For reasons that do not well appear the American force at 
Toronto was soon withdrawn from its vantage ground and recrossed the lake to the mouth 
of the Niagara. Soon afterwards, on the 27th of May, a force led by Generals Chandler 
and Winder carried the British position of Fort George by storm. The garrison escaping, 
retreated to Burlington Bay, at the western extremity of the lake. 

Much confusion marks the military history of the year 181 3. After the battle of the 
Thames General Harrison transferred his forces to Buffalo, and then, though seemingly in 
great favor with the public, resigned his commission. General Dearborn also withdrew 
from the service and the command-in-chief was transferred to General James Wilkinson, 
already aged and incompetent. The next active campaign was planned by General Arm- 
strong and was designed for the conquest of Montreal. The Army of the Centre was ordered 
to join the Army of the North on the St. Lawrence ; but the movement was not effected 
with energy or celerity. On the 5th of November, seven thousand Americans, embarking 
twenty miles north of Sackett's Harbor, sailed against Montreal. Parties of British, Cana- 
dians and Indians gathering on the left bank of the St. Lawrence, impeded the progress of 
the expedition. General Brown was sent ashore with a considerable detachment to drive 
the enemy into the interior. On the nth of November was fought the severe but inde- 
icisive battle of Chrysler's Field. The Americans then passed down the river to St. Regis, 
(where the forces ot General Hampton were expected to form a junction with Wilkinson's 
command. But Hampton did not arrive ; and the division of Wilkinson went into winter 
quarters at Fort Covington. 

Meanwhile the British on the Niagara frontier rallied and recaptured Fort George. 
Before abandoning the place, however, General McClure, commandant of the American 
garrison, burned the town of Newark. This act cost the people of Northern New York 
dearly ; for the British and Indians soon effected a crossing of the river, took Fort Niagara 



302 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



and iu retaliation burned the villages of Youngstown, Lewiston and Manchester. On th« 
30th of December Black Rock and I'uiTalo were laid in ashes by the enemy. 

DESPERATE ENGAGEMENT BETWEEN THE CHESAPEAKE AND THE SHANNON. 

From this indecisive and half-barbarous war on the northern frontier we may turn agaio 
to the sea. On the 24th of Februar}', 1813, the American war-sloop //i?r«^/, commanded 
by Captain James Lawrence, overtook the British brig Peacock off the coast of Demcrara. 
A terrible battle of fifteen minutes ensued and the Peacock surrendered. While the Ameri- 
cans were transferring the conquered crew, the wrecked brig gave a lurch and was swallowed 
from sight Nine British sailors and three of Lawrence's men were sucked down in the 
whirlpool. 

Captain Lawrence by his victory gained great reputation. On returning to Boston he 
was transferred to the command of the Chesapeake. With this strong ship he put to sea 

and was soon challenged by Captain 

Broke of the British Shannon. The 

two vessels joined battle eastward 

from Cape Ann on the ist of June, 

1813. The conflict was obstinate, 

brief and dreadful. The Chesapeake 

was wrecked. In a short time every 

officer on board was either killed or 

wounded. Captain Lawrence himself 

was struck with a ball and fell dying 

on the deck. As they bore him 

down the hatchway he gave his last 

famous order, which became the 

motto of the American sailor.s — 

"Don't give up the ship!" 

The Shannon towed her prize 

into the harbor of Halifax, 

where the bodies of Lawrence 

and Lieutenant Ludlow were 

buried with the honors of wai 

by the British. 

The capture of the Chesa- 
peake seemed to be a turn in the 
tide by which the fortunes of the American navy were borne down and lost in ever- recurring 
defeat. On the 14th of August, the British Pelican overtook the American brig Argus, 
and obliged her to surrender. On the 5th of September, the British brig Boxer was in turn 
captured by the American Enterprise, off the coast of Maine. Captain Blyth, the British 
commander, and Captain Burrows, of the Enterprise, were both killed in the battle, and 
were buried side by side at Portland. On the 28th of March, 1814, while the ship Essex, 
nnder command of Captain Porter, was lying in the harbor of Valparaiso she was attacked 
by two British vessels, the Phoebe and the Cherub. Captain Porter fought bravely 
until nearly all his crew Were killed or wounded, and then surrendered the remnant to 
his antagonists. 

Next came an era of marauding. Early in 1814, Lewiston was bombarded and taken 
by a British squadron. Other British men-of-war entered the Chesapeake, and sending de- 




ENGAGEMENT BETWEEN THE CHESAPEAKE AND SHANNON. 



EPOCH OF NATIONALITY. 



303' 



tachments ashore here and there, burned the villages on the bay. At the town of Hampton, 
the soldiers and marines perpetrated great outrages. On the coast of New England the wai 
was conducted in a more humane manner. There Commodore Hardy, a regular officer of 
the British navy, was in command, and the Americans had no cause to complain of other 
than the necessary hardships of war. 

With the spring of 1814 another invasion of Canada was planned by the Americansj 
but there was much delay in beginning the campaign. Not until the 3d of July did Gen^ 
erals Scott and Ripley, with three thousand men, cross the Niagara river and capture Fort 
Erie. On the next day the Americans advanced on Chippewa village ; but before reaching 
that place they were met 
by the British anny 
under command of 
General Riall. On the 
next day, towards even- 
ing, a severe battle was 
fought on the plain soutli 
of Chippewa river, and 
the Americans, c o m - 
manded by Scott and 
Ripley, won the field. 
General Riall fell back 
to Burlington Heights, 
and the Americans 
advanced to a position 
on the high grounds in 
sight of Niagara Falls. 

"The summer campaign opened with the capture by the British of the fort at Oswego, 
although it was stubbornly and bravely defended by its commander. Colonel Mitchell. May 
5th the town was bombarded and a fruitless attempt made to land. The next day the 
effort was renewed successfully. Mitchell thereupon abandoned the fort, which mounted 
only five guns, and after annoying the English as much as he could he retreated to Oswego 
Falls. Having dismantled the works and burned the barracks, the enemy retired." 

BLOODY LUNDY'S LANE. 

Here, on the evening of the 25th of July, was fought the hardest battle of the war. 
General Scott, commanding the American right, was hard pressed by Riall, but held his 
ground until reinforced by the other divisions of the anny. The British reserves were 
brought into action, and as twilight faded into darkness both armies were at death-grips in 
the struggle. A detachment of Americans getting upon the British rear, succeeded in cap- 
turing General Riall and his staff; but the main line was still unbroken. The key 
to the enemy's position was a high ground crowned with a battery. Calling Colond 
James Miller to his side. General Brown, according to the tradition of the battle, 
said "Colonel, take your regiment and storm that battery." "I will try, sir," was 
Miller's answer; and the battery was taken and held against three successive assaults of 
the British. General Drummond was wounded, and the British anny, numbering about five 
thousand, was driven from the field with a loss of more than eight hundred men. The 
Americans lost an equal number; but were jubilant with their victory. 

Soon after this battle of Niagara, or Lundy's Lane, as it was popularly called, the 




ATTACK ON OSWEGO. 



304 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

American forces fell back to Fort Erie. General Gaines, at this time in command at Buf- 
falo, crossed over from that place and assumed commaud of the army. General Drummoiid, 
who had succeeded General Riall, was reinforced, and on the 4tli of August invested Fort 
Erie. The siege continued until the 17th of September, when the Americans made a sortie, 
and the British siege was raised. On the 5th of November, Fort Erie was destroyed by the 
Americans, who recrossed the Niagara, and took up winter quarters at Black Rock and 
'Buffalo. j 

Meanwhile General Wilkinson, with the army of the North, had passed the winter of 
J813-14 at Fort Covington. With the coming of spring the American commander under- 
took an invasion of Canada. At a place called La Colle, on the river Sorrel, he attacked 
the British and was defeated. He then fell back to Plattsburg, was relieved of the com- 
mand and superseded by General Izard. 

At tliis time Lake Champlaiu was under control of an American fleet, commanded by 
Commodore McDonough. The British General Prevost advanced into New York with an 
anny of fourteen thousand men, and at the same time ordered Commodore Downie to ascend 
the Sorel with his fleet. The invading anny succeeded in reaching Plattsburg, where Com- 
modore McDonough' s squadron lay at anchor in the bay. On the 6th of September, Gen- 
eral Macomb retired with his forces to the south bank of the Saranac. This stream was 
made the line of defence, and for four days the British made ineffectual efforts to cross the 
river. Downie' s fleet had now come into position for action, and a general battle was 
planned for the nth. Prevost' s army was to carry Macomb's position and the British 
•quadron was to attack McDonough at the same time. 

The naval battle began first, and was obstinately fought for two and a-half hours. 
Gradually victory inclined to the side of the American vessels. Commodore Downie and 
many of his officers were killed. The heavier British ships were disabled one by one, and 
obliged to strike their colors ; the smaller escaped. The British army on shore gave battle, 
but after a severe action that also was defeated, with considerable losses. Prevost retired 
precipitately to Canada, and the English ministry began to devise measures of peace. 

At the same time the war on the Atlantic coast was prosecuted with more vigor than 
the enemy had hitherto shown. Late in the summer Admiral Cochran arrived off the Vir- 
ginia coast with a squadron of twenty-one vessels. He had on board, besides his crews, a 
yeteran army numbering four thousand, under General Ross. The American fleet in the 
Chesapeake, under commaud of Commodore Baniey, was unable to opjiose so powerful an 
armament. The British entered the bay with the purpose of attacking Washington and 
Baltimore. The larger division sailed into the Patuxent, and on the 19th of August Gen- 
eral Ross debarked with his division at Benedict. 

CAPTURE AND BURNING OF WASHINGTON. 

Commodore Barney was now obliged to blow up his vessel and take to the shore. The 
(British advanced against Washington. No adequate preparations had been made for their 
resistance. At Bladensburg, six miles from the capital, the enemy was met, on the 24tli of' 
the month, by the forces of Commodore Barney. Here a battle was fought, but the militia 
behaved badly, and Barney was defeated and taken prisoner. The way was thus opened to 
tlie capital. It only remained for the President, the cabinet and the people to betake 
themselves to flight. As for Ross and his anny, they marched unopposed into Washing- 
ton. All the public buildings except the Patent Office were burned. The unfinished 
Capitol and the President's bouse were left a mass of niins. In justification of these pro- 



EPOCH OF NATIONALITY. 305 

eeedings, amounting to barbarism, the British alleged the principle of retaliation and the 
previous bad conduct of the Americans, who at Toronto and other places on the Canadian 
frontier had behaved but little better. 

The other division of the British fleet came presently to Alexandria. The inhabitants 
finding themselves at the mercy of the enemy, purchased forbearance by the surrender of 
twenty-one ships, sixteen thousand barrels of flour and a thousand hogsheads of tobacco. 
As soon as General Ross had completed his work at Washington he proceeded with hia 
army and fleet to Baltimore. There the American militia to the number of ten thousand 
gathered for defence under command of General Samuel Smith. On the 12th of Sep- 
tember, the British came to land at the mouth of the Patapsco, and the fleet began the 
ascent of the river. The land division was soon confronted by the American advance 
under General Strieker. A skirmish ensued in which General Ross was killed ; but Colonel 
Brooks assumed command, and the invasion was continued until the British came upon the 
American lines near the city and were brought to a halt. 

By this time the British squadron had ascended the Patapsco and begun a cannonade 
of Fort McHenry. From sunrise of the 13th of September until after midnight the guns 
and mortars of the fleet poured a tempest of shells upon the fortress, but no impression 
could be made upon the works. * It was clear that Fort McHenry was too strong for the 
assailants. The British became disheartened, and ceased to fire. The land forces retired 
coincidently with the fleet, and Baltimore was saved from capture. 

The coast of New England sufiered here and there from the incursions of the enemy. 
On the 9th and loth of August the village of Stonington, Connecticut, was bombarded by 
Commodore Hardy ; but the British, attempting to land, were driven back. The New Eng- 
land fisheries, however, were in most places broken up. The salt-works at Cape Cod were 
about to be destroyed, but escaped by the payment of heavy ransoms. The blockade was 
severe. All the harbors from Maine to Delaware were sealed to foreign commerce. The 
trade of the Eastern States, upon which so much of the prosperity of that section of the 
Union depended, was almost totally destroyed. 

POLITICAL DISSENSIONS GROWING OUT OF THE WAR. 

For these reasons many of the men of New England were opposed to the prosecution 
of the war. The Federalists, as a measure of political opposition, cried out against its 
continuance. The legislature of Massachusetts advised the calling of a convention to con- 
sider the condition of the country and the means of reaching a peace. The other Eastern 
States responded to the call, and on the 14th of December the delegates assembled at 
Hartford. 

As a political movement this meeting drew great odium to its promoters. The leaders 
of the Democratic party did not hesitate to say that the purposes of the assembly were dis- 
loyal and treasonable. On convening the delegates sat with closed doors. What their dis- 
cussions were has never been fully known. The session lasted for nearly three weeks, and 
was ended with the publication of an address in which the injustice and impolicy of the 
war were held up to condemnation. But the convention was of little eSect as it related t© 
the course of events, except that the political prospects of those who participated in the 
proceedings were ruined. 

The war of 181 2 — so-called — ^was now drawing to a close. A student of general his- 

* It was during the night of the bombardment that Francis M. Key, detained on board of a British ship and 
watching the American flag over Fort McHenry — seen at intervals by the glare of rockets and the flash of canno* 
^<x>mposed The Star Spangled Banner. 



3o6 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

tory will remember that the Napoleonic dynasty in France was tottering to its downfall. The 
continental nations were concentrating their energies around the French empire, and the 
little Man of Destiny, who for nearly twenty years had made them tremble in their capitals, 
was already an exile at Elba. The American war was attracting but little attention abroad. 
Great Britain herself prosecuted her American campaigns and expeditions languidly and 
with indifference. 

During the progress of the conflict Spain — particularly the Spanish authorties of 
Florida — had sympathized with the British. In August of 1814, a British fleet was permitted 
by the commandant of Pensacola to use that port for the purpose of preparing an expedition 
against Fort Bowyer, on tlie bay of Mobile. General Jackson, who commanded in the South, 
remonstrated with the Spaniards for this breach of neutrality, but received no satisfaction. 
He thereupon marched a force against Pensacola, took the town by assault, and expelled 
the British from Florida. 

It was in the prosecution of this campaign that Jackson learned of the preparations of the 
British for the conquest of Louisiana. This information was altogether to his liking, as it 
gave free scope for liis restless and daring nature to strike the enemy at his own discretion. 
He repaired at once to New Orleans, where he declared martial law, mustered the militia, 
and adopted measures for repelling the invasion. From La Fitte, the notorious smuggler 
of the West Indies, he learned the enemy's plans. A British anny twelve thousand strong, 
tinder command of Sir Edward Pakenham, was coming from Jamaica. On the loth of De- 
cember, the squadron entered Lake Borgne, sixty miles northeast of New Orleans. 

BATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS. 

From this point Pakenham began to make his advance towards the city. On the 22d 
of the month he reached the Mississippi about nine miles below New Orleans, and on the 
next night Generals Jackson and Coffee made a bloody assault on the British position. But 
the Americans were not in suflRcient strength to succeed in such manner, and were obliged 
to fall back to a more favorable position on the canal, about four miles below the city. 
Pakenham advanced, and on the 28th began a cannonade of the American position. On 
New Year's Day, 1815, he renewed the attack with some spirit, but was repulsed. After 
this the British commander made preparations for a general battle. 

For this Jackson was ready. He had constructed earthworks and thrown up a long 
line of cotton-bales and sand-bags for the protection of his forces. The British moved for- 
ward, and after some manoeuvring came to battle on the 8th of Januarj'. The conflict 
began with the early morning, and was ended before nine o'clock. Column after column of 
the British regulars was thrown for^vard against the American intrenchments, only to be 
smitten with irretrievable ruin. Jackson's men were almost entirely secure from the 
enemy's fire, while ever>' discharge of the Tennessee and Kentucky rifles told with fearful 
effect on the British. Pakenham was killed. General Gibbs was mortally wounded. Only 
General Lambert was left to call the fragments of the anny from the field. 

The victory of Jackson was perhaps the most decisive and startling in the histor> of 
American warfare. Of the British forces seven hundred were killed, fourteen hundred 
wounded and five hundred taken prisoners. The loss of the Americans amounted to eight 
men killed and Ihirtecn wounded ! General Lambert retired with the wreck of his army 
into Lake Borgne, while Jackson, marching into New Orleans, was received with the 
greatest enthusiasm. 

The battle of New Orleans was the last blow of our second war with the mother 
countr>'. There were no further engagements on land. On the sea there were a few 



EPOCH OF NATIONALITY. 



307 



additional conflicts like those which had characterized the beginning of hostilities. On the 
20th of February, the American Constitution^ cruising off Cape St. Vincent, captured two 
British vessels, the Cyane and the Levant. On the 22d of March, 1815, the American 
Hornet made an end by capturing the British Penguin off the coast of Brazil. 

But these sea-battles, as well as the battle of New Orleans itself, had been fought under 
flags which were no longer hostile. Already a treaty of peace had been concluded. In the 
^ummer of 181 4 American 
commissioners were sent to 
'Ghent, in Belgium, and were 
there met by the ambassadors 
of Great Britain. The agents 
of the United States were 
John Quincy Adams, James 
A. Bayard, Henry Clay, 
Jonathan Russell and Albert 
Gallatin. The British com- 
missioners were Lord Gam- 
bier, Henry Goulbum, and 
William Adams. On the 24th 
of December the terms of 
reconciliation and settlement 
were agreed to and signed. 
In both coimtries the news 
was received with profound 
satisfaction. The causes of battle of new Orleans. 

the war had been from the first factitious and without definition. On the i8th of Febniary, 
1815, the treaty was ratified by the Senate of the United States and peace was publicly 
proclaimed. 

It could not be said that either nation was the victor. Both had fought and suffered to 
little purpose. These facts of the irrationality of the war came out strongly in the terms 
of pacification. Indeed, there never was a more absurd treaty than that of Ghent. Its only 
significance was that Great Britain and the United States, having been at war, agreed to be 
at peace. Not a single one of the distinctive issues to decide which the war had been 
undertaken was settled or even mentioned in the compact with which it was ended. Of the 
impressment of American seamen not a word was said. The wrongs done to the commerce 
of the United States were not even referred to. The rights of neutral nations were left as 
ttndetermined as before. Of "Free Trade and Sailors' Rights," which had been the battle- 
cry of the American navy, no mention was made. The whole treaty was circumlocutory 
and inconsequential. The principal articles were devoted to the settlement of unimportant 
boundaries and the possession of some petty islands in the bay of Passamaquoddy I 

EFFECTS OF THE WAR. 

There is little doubt, however, that at the time of the treaty of Ghent Great Britain 
gave private assurance to the United States that impressment on the high seas and 
the other wrongs complained of by the Americans should be practised against them 
no more. Thus much at least was gained. For the space of more than seventy-five 
years vessels bearing the flag of the United States have been exempt from such insults as 
fed to the war of 181 2. Another advantage gained by America was the recognition of her 





3o8 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

naval strength and prowess. It was no longer doubtful that the American sailors were the 
equals of any in the world. Their valor and patriotism had challenged the admiration of 
all nations. It was no small triumph for the republic that her flag should henceforth be 
honored on all seas and oceans. 

The troubles of the American navy with the Algerine pirates of the Mediterraneaa 
hav2 more than once been mentioned on former pages. The war between the United State* 
and Great Britain gave opportunity to the Moorish sea-robbers to renew their depredations. 
At the close of the conflict the government of the United States made haste to settle the score 
with the African pirates. Commodore Decatur was ordered to proceed to the Mediterranean 
and to chastise them into final submission. He had the good fortune, on the i/tli of June, to 
fall in with the principal frigate of the Algerine squadron, and this ship, after a severe fight, 
was compelled to surrender. Two days afterwards he captured another frigate. In a short 
time he sailed boldly into the bay of Algiers and was able to dictate to the frightened Dey 
an advantageous and honorable treaty. The Moorish Emperor agreed to release his Ameri- 
can prisoners without ransom, to relinquish all claims to tribute and to give a pledge tliat. 
his ships should trouble American merchantmen no more. Decatur followed up the good 
work by sailing against Tunis and Tripoli, both of which powers he compelled to give 
pledges of good conduct and to pay large sums in the way of indemnity for former 
depredations. 

;foundin6 of a negro free state. 

We thus reach the close of the epoch of our second war with the mother country. 
Before the end of Madison's administration the Territory of Indiana was organized and 
admitted into the Union. The new commonwealth was received by act of Congress on the 
nth of December, 1816. About the same time was founded the Colonization Society of the 
United States, having for its object the establishment of a refuge for free persons of color. 
Many distinguished American citizens became members of the association and sought to 
promote its interests. Liberia, on the western coast of Africa, was selected as the seat of a 
proposed colony to be founded by the freemen of the African race emigrating from America. 
A sufficient number of these went abroad to establish a flourishing negro state ; but the 
enterprise has never answered to the expectations and hopes of its promoters. The capital 
of Liberia was named Monrovia, in honor of James Monroe, who in the fall of 1816 waa 
chosen as Madison's successor in the Presidency. For Vice-President the choice fell on 
Daniel D. Tompkins of New York. 

The one great benefit of the war of 1812, so far as our country was concerned, was 
that the conflict conduced greatly to the independence of the United States. The American 
nation became more conscious of its own existence, more self-sufficient than ever before. 
The reader of general history will have readily perceived that the war was really a side 
issue of the greater struggle going on in Europe. On the part of Great Britain the 
conflict was conducted but feebly — as though she knew herself to be in the wrong. As 
soon as a fair opi^ortunity was presented she receded from a contest in which she had 
engaged in only a half-hearted and irresolute way and of which she had good cause to be 
ashamed. At the close of the conflict the historian comes to what may be called the Middle 
Ages of the United States — an epoch in which the tides of population rolled through the 
notches of the Alleghanies into the Mississippi Valley, tending to a powerful physical civili- 
zation, in which, however, the institution of African slavery began to throw its black and 
portentous shadow athwart the historical landscape. 




CHAPTER XXII. 
MIDDLE AGES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

FTER the war of 1812 the United States entered a 
period of an unheroic character. Tragedy disap-| 
peared from our annals. Nor could it be truthfully 
said that great deeds of peace took the place of the 
excitement and vicissitudes of the battle-field. Never- 
theless, the era upon which we are here to enter will 
be found replete with interest. A new and more 
humane spirit may be discovered among the people. 
The nineteenth century, towards the close of its first 
quarter and the beginning of the second, yielded itself 
somewhat to a more benign genius than that which 
had dominated the eighteenth to its close. In the 
present chapter we are to follow the annals of our 
country from the accession of James Monroe to the 
Presidency to the epoch of the war with Mexico. 

The new President was a Virginian by birth and education, being the fourth and last 
of the so-called ' ' Virginia Dynasty. ' ' All the chief magistrates thus far, with the excep- 
tion of the elder Adams, had been chosen from the Old Dominion. Monroe was bom on 
the 28th of April, 1758. He was educated at William and Mary College, from which insti- 
tution he went out in 1776 to become a soldier of the Revolution. He was a young man 
of valor and great abilities. In the battle of Trenton he received a British ball in his 
shoulder. He served under Lord Stirling in the severe campaigns of 1777-78, being in the 
battles of Brandywine, Germantown and Monmouth. After the Revolution he became a 
student of law with Thomas Jefferson, at that time governor of Virginia. He served in the 
Virginia assembly ; and at the age of twenty-six was sent to Congress. He was one of 
those who first discerned the inutility of the Articles of Confederation and who exerted 
themselves for the adoption of a better constitution for the United States. 

Monroe was a member of the constitutional convention of 1787, and three years after- 
wards was elected Senator of the United States from Virginia. In 1794 he was sent as 
plenipotentiary to France, and was one of those who negotiated the purchase of lyOuisiana. 
Afterwards he was appointed American minister to the court of St. James. He was one 
of the many who, beginning public life as a Federalist, under the leadership of Washington 
changed gradually to a more democratic type of opinion and policy, until he took his place 
in the same category of statesmen with Jeflferson and Madison. In 181 1 Monroe was 
chosen governor of Virginia, and when Madison came to the Presidency was appointed Sec- 
retary of State. His election to the Presidency was reached by an overwhelming vote of a 
hundred and eighty-three out of a total of two hundred and seventeen. He chose for his 
cabinet John Quincy Adams as Secretary of State, William H. Ctawfoid as Secretary of 

(309) 



3IO PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

the Treasury, Jobn C. Calhoun as Secretary of War, Benjamin W. Crowninshield as SecT». 
tary of the Navy, and William Wirt as Attorney-General. 

MONROE'S ADMINISTRATION. 

The Democratic principles which had marked the administrations of Jeflferson and 
Madison were adopted and furthered by Monroe. The stormy times of the second decade 
of the century, however, now gave place to years of unbroken peace. The animosities and 
party strifes which had prevailed to so great an extent since the death of Washington 
aeemed for a season to subside. The statesmen who determined the policy of the govern- 
ment devoted themselves earnestly to the payment of the national debt Wise measures 
were adopted for the 
liquidation and funding 
of the national burden, 
ana commerce was 
speedily revived. The ( 
government was econo- 
mically and faithfully 
administered. Monroe 
had many of the political 
diaracteristics of the 
Father of his Country, 
and his official duties were 
perfonned in the spirit 
of patriotism and devo- 
tion to the public welfare. 
The population of the, 
country rapidly increased. 
Wealth, as the result of 
production and c o m - 
merce, began to flow in, 
and in a few years the 
war debt was fully and 
honestly discharged. 

The first foreign' 
trouble of the United 
States was a difficulty 
between the government 
and the little kingdom 
■of Hayti in the northern 
part of San Domingo. 
Suspicions arose that 
Louis XVIII., the newly 
restored Bourbon King of 
France, would endeavor 

to obtain the sovereignty of the island and secure its annexation to the French kingdom. 
Under the Napoleonic ascendancy Hayti had been for a time one of the possessions of 
France, and there was an attempt to maintain under the restoration what had been won 
by the sword of Bonaparte. 




COXFIRMIXO A TRKATV BETWEEN WHITES ANT) INDIANS. 



EPOCH OF NATIONALITY. 311 

At this juncture the sovereign of Hayti was a certain Christophe, who became anxious 
to secure the recognition of his independence by the government of the United States. 
Nor was this expectation disappointed. The President, altogether unwilling that France 
should be intermeddling with the political affairs of the American islands, met the over- 
tures of the Haytian king with favor. An agent of the government was sent out in the 
frigate Congress to conclude a treaty of amity and commerce with the insular kingdom. 
The President, however, took pains that his agent should not rank as a plenipotentiary. 
On this score the Haytian authorities were offended, and the negotiations were broken off. 

Better success attended the work of forming a new treaty with the Indians of the terri- 
tory northwest of the River Ohio. The tribes most concerned in the new compact were 
the Wyandots, the Delawares, the Senecas and the Shawnees. Other native nations interested 
were the Chippewas, the Ottowas and the Pottawattamies. The question at issue related to 
the Indian lands in the broad country between the upper Ohio and Lake Erie. It was at 
this time that the Indian title to the valley of the Maumee was procured. The cession and 
purchase of about four millions of acres were accomplished as one feature of the treaty, and 
it may well surprise the reader to know that the sum paid for this vast and fertile tract did 
not exceed fourteen thousand dollars ! In addition to this purchase-money, the Delawares 
were for their part to receive an annuity of five hundred dollars, while the combined 
annuities guaranteed to the Wyandots, the Senecas, the Shawnees and the Ottawas amounted 
to about ten thousand dollars. The Chippewas and Pottawattamies were granted an annuity 
of three thousand five hundred dollars for fifteen years. Certain tracts were also reserved 
by the red men for their homes and hunting grounds amounting to an aggregate of about 
three hundred thousand acres. 

The belief of our publicists at this time was that the Indians, surrounded by the vast 
and progressive settlements of the white race, would soon be assimilated to the civilized 
life and be gradually absorbed as a part of the nation. This expectation, however, was 
doomed to disappointment. It was soon discovered that the Indians had little sympathy 
with American farms and villages and civilized methods of life. The habits of barbarism 
were too strongly fixed through ages of heredity and no aptitude for the anticipated change 
was seen on the part of the sequestrated aborigines. 

Thirty years had now elapsed since the formation of the Constitution. The new system 
of government seemed to be working well and to have lodgment in the hearts of the people. 
In no respect did the provisions of the fundamental law apply more successfully than in the 
admission or addition of new States to the Union. The next territory after Indiana to 
apply for the privileges and rights of Statehood was the Territory of Mississippi, which 
was organized and admitted in 181 7. The new commonwealth contained an area of forty- 
seven thousand square miles and brought a population of sixty-five thousand. This work 
completed the extension of the State system on the southwest as far as the Mississippi^ 
from the mouth of the Illinois to the Gulf of Mexico. \ 

REVIVAL OF BUCCANEERING. i 

In the planting of new civilizations on our continents vast opportunities were given to 
the restless and lawless classes to undertake and pursue systems of crime against national 
and international authority. One of the most favorable scenes for such manner of life -was 
the West Indies and the littoral parts of Florida. Off the northeastern coast of the last- 
named State a nest of buccaneers was established on Amelia Island. The piratical com- 
bination had its origin and opportunity in the Revolutionary movements which had been 
jjoing on in New Grenada and Venezuela. A certain Gregor McGregor who held a comrais- 



312 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

sion from the insurgent authorities of New Grenada gathered a baud of freebooters from 
many parts, particularly from Charleston and Savannah, and with these fortified and held 
Amelia Island, making it a sort of headquarters for slave-traders and South Americaji 
privateers. 

It was doubtless believed by the audacious rascals that the sympathy of the United 
States for the republican tendency shown in South America at this time would save them 
from disturbance. The buccaneers seemed to be acting in the cause of South American 
liberty, and they hoped by this attitude to escape attack from the government of the United 
States. They began under this infatuation to carry matters with a high hand, and presently 
proceeded to blockade the port of St. Augustine. In doing so they demeaned themselves 
as if there were no civilization or retributive justice which they had cause to fear. The gov- 
ernment of the United States, however, soon took action against the pirates and sent a fleet 
which succeeded in breaking up their establishment on Amelia Island. A similar assem- 
blage of freebooters which had been established on the island of Galveston, off the coast of 
Te.xas, was in like manner suppressed. 

Now it was that the question of the internal improvement of the United States as a 
measure of national policy first presented itself as a practical issue. The population of the 
republic was rapidly moving westward and filling up the IMississippi valley. The necessity 
for thoroughfares and other physical means of intercourse and commerce rose upon the 
people as a condition of their further progress. The territorial vastness of the country 
made it imperative to devise suitable means of communication between the distant parts. 
Without thoroughfares and canals it was evident that the rich products of the almost limitless 
interior of the country could never reach a general emporium or foreign market It was 
also evident that private capital and enterprise were not sufficient for the production of the 
needed improvements ; but had Congress, under the Constitution, the right to vote money 
for the prosecution of such enterprises ? 

CONTENTION BETWEEN DEMOCRATS AND FEDERALISTS. 

This question became one of political division. The Democratic party had from the 
first been what is known as the party of strict construction. The Democratic doctrine was 
tliat whatever is not positively conceded and expressed in the Constitution has no existence 
in the American system of government. The Federalists, on the other hand, claimed that 
the Constitution of the United States is pregnant with implied powers, and that these may 
be evoked under the necessities of any given situation and directed to the accomplishment 
of any desired end. Jefferson and Madison had been the leaders and organizers of the doc- 
trine of strict constniction. They and their party had opposed internal improvements 
under national patronage. Monroe held a similar view — though less strenuously — and the 
propositions in Congress to make appropriations for the internal improvement of the country 
were either voted down or vetoed. 

\ To this policy there was only a single exceptional instance. A bill was passed appro- 
priating the necessary means for the construction of a National Road across the Alleghanies 
from Cumberland to Wheeling. This was an extension of the great thoroughfare which 
had already been constructed from Peninsular Virginia to Cumberland, and which was after- 
wards carried, though without completion, from Wheeling westward through Ohio, Indiana 
and Illinois to St. Louis. 

With the passage of the act for the building of the National Road the question of 
other internal improvements was referred to the several States as a concession to their rights. 



EPOCH OF NATIONALITY. 313, 

Under this legislative action, New York took the lead by constructing at the public expense 
a magnificent canal from BufiFalo to Albany, a distance of three hundred and sixty miles. 
By this means the waters of the great lakes were conveniently united with those of the 
Hudson and the Alantic. The cost of the canal was more than seven and a half million 
dollars, and the whole period of Monroe's administration was occupied in completing 
the work. 

JACKSON'S HEROIC MEASURES FOR SUPPRESSING THE SEMINOLES. 

In the year 181 7 the Seminoles, occupying the frontiers of Georgia and Alabama, broke 
into hostilities against the whites. It has frequently been difficult in the history of oar 
country to ascertain the exact causes of Indian hostilities. Perhaps the hereditary instiucta 
of war on the part of the savage races sought expression at intervals in blood and violence. 
Otherwise the land question may be ascribed as the true cause of the larger part of Indian 
hostilities in America. In the case of the Seminole outbreak considerable numbers of half- 
savage Negroes and Creek Indians joined in the depredations. 

At the beginning of hostilities the government ordered General Gates, commandant of 
the post on Flint River, to march into the Seminole country and reduce the savages to sub- 
mission: but that officer after destroying a few villages found himself unable to proceed. 
It was alleged that his forces were inadequate for the campaign. General Jackson, of Ten- 
nessee, was hereupon ordered to collect from the adjacent States a sufficient army to reduce 
the Seminoles to submission. The general, however, took his own course in the matter, 
and mustered about a thousand riflemen out of west Tennessee, with whom in the following 
spring he marched against the Indians and overran the hostile country. General Jackson 
had acquired among the natives the sobriquet of the Big Knife, and his name spread terroi 
among them. 

The expedition of Jackson was followed by a serious episode. The General, while 
on his march against the Indians, had entered Florida and taken possession of the Spanish 
post at St. Marks. He gave as a reason for doing so that the place was necessary as a base 
of operations against the savages. The Spanish garrison which had held St Marks was re- 
moved to Pensacola. At the time of the capture of the place two Englishmen, named 
Arbuthnot and Ambrister, were found at St. Marks, and charges were preferred against them 
of having incited the Seminole insurrection. They were tried, convicted of treacherous 
acts, condemned and executed. 

Jackson then marched against Pensacola, took the town, besieged the fortress and com- 
pelled the Spanish authorities to take ship for Havana. These measures excited a bitter 
animosity against General Jackson, and he was subjected by his enemies to unmeasured con- 
demnation and abuse. The President and Congress, however, upheld him in his reckless 
proceedings, and his reputation was increased rather than diminished by his arbitrary con- 
duct. The great secret of his popularity and influence was his success and honesty. A 
resolution of censure upon him introduced into the House of Representatives was defeated 
by a large vote. 

Other important results followed in the train. When the news from Florida was 
borne to Spain the king entered protests against Jackson, but his remonstrance was little 
heeded by the American government. The Spanish monarch began to perceive the 
unprofitableness and difficulty of maintaining such a provincial government as Florida at so 
great a distance from the home administration of the kingdom. It became evident that the 
defence of Florida would in all probability cost him more than the country was worth. He 
accordingly proposed a cession of the province to the United States. For this purpose 



314 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

negotiations were begun at Washington, and on the 22d of February, 1819, a new treaty 
was conchided, by which East and West Florida and the outlying islands were surrendered 
forever to the United States. In consideration of the cession, the American government 
agreed to relinquish all claims to the Territory of Te.xas, and to pay to citizens of the 
United States for depredations committed by Spanish vessels a sum not exceeding five 
millions of dollars. By the same treaty it was agreed that the boundary line between the 
United States and Mexico should be the river Sabine. 

MONEY CRISIS OF 1819. 

Almost coincidently with this important treaty came the first great financial crisis tc 
the United States. The American Republic had been poor in resources. The people as a 
rule were small property-holders to whom capital, as that term is understood in more recent 
times, was a stranger. At length, however, wealth increased and financial institutions 
grew into such importance as to make possible a crisis in monetar}' and commercial affairs. 
We have already seen how, in the year 181 7, the Bank of the United States was reorganized. 
With that event came improved facilities for credit, and with these facilities the spirit and 
fact of speculation. With the coming of speculation, dishonesty and fraud arose, and the 
circle of finance ran its usual course, until the strain was broken in a crisis. The control 
of the Branch Bank of the United States at Baltimore was obtained by a band of speculators 
who secured the connivance of the public officers in their schemes. About two millions of 
dollars were withdrawn from the institution over and above its securities. President Cheves, 
however, who belonged to the Superior Board of Directors, adopted a policy by which the 
rascality of the management was discovered and e.xposed. An end was put to the system 
of unlimited credits, and the business of the country at length swung back into its 
accustomed channels. 

Other new States soon followed Mississippi into the Union. In 181S Illinois, beinj 
the twenty-first in number, or the eighth new State, was organized and admitted. The ne\i 
commonwealth embraced an area of over fiftj'-five thousand .square miles. The populatioL 
at the time of admission was about forty-seven thousand. In December of the following 
year Alabama was added to the Union. The new State in this instance brought a popula- 
tion of a hundred and twenty-five thousand and an area of nearly fifty-one thousand square 
miles. 

About the same time civilization as expressed in civil rule took its stride across the 
Mississippi. The great territory of Missouri was divided into two. The .southern part was 
organized into Arkansas Territory, while the northern half continued to bear the name of 
Missouri. In 1820 the province of Maine, which had remained imder the jurisdiction of 
Massachusetts since 1652, was separated from that commonwealth and admitted into the 
Union as a State. The population of Maine at this tinie had reached two hundred and 
ninety-eight thousand ; the territory embraced nearly thirty-two thousand square miles. In 
August of 1821 the Territory of Missouri, embracing an area of sixty-seven thousand 
iquare n:iles and a population of seventy-four thousand, was admitted as the twenty-fourth 
member of the Union. But the admission was attended with a political agitation so violent 
as to threaten the peace of the United States and to foretoken a long series of events the 
effects of which have not yet disappeared from tlie liistory of our countr)'. 

THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE. 

The question at issue was that of African slavery in the proposed State of Mis.souri. 
The bill for the admission of that commonwealth, or rather for the organization of the 



EPOCH OF NATIONALITY. 315 

Territory for admission, was brought before Congress in February of 1819. Before thia 
time, however, slave-holders in large numbers had gone into Missouri carrying their human 
chattels with them. The issue was at once raised in Congress whether a new State should 
be admitted with the system of slave labor prevalent therein, or whether by Congressional 
action slaveholding should be prohibited. A motion to amend the territorial bill was intro- 
duced by James Tallmadge, of New York, to the effect that any further introduction of 
slaves into Missouri should be forbidden, and that all slave children in the new common- 
wealth should be granted their freedom on reaching the age of twenty-five. 

This amendment was adopted and became for the time a part of the organic law for the 
Territory. A few days afterwards, when a bill was presented for the Territorial organiza- 
tion of Arkansas, a motion was made for the insertion of a clause similar to the Tallmadge 
amendment in the Missouri bill. In this case there was a heated debate, and the proposed 
amendment was defeated. The mover of the same, John W. Taylor, of New York, then 
introduced a resolution that thereafter, in the organization of Territories out of that part 
of the Louisiana purchase which lay north of the parallel of thirty-six degrees and thirty 
minutes, slavery should be prohibited. This resolution was also defeated after a heated 
debate. Meanwhile Tallmadge's amendment to the Missouri bill was brought up in the 
Senate, and was defeated in that body. As a consequence of this legislation, real and 
attempted, the two new Territories of Missouri and Arkansas were organized without restric- 
tions in the matter of slavery. 

The people of Missouri now proceeded to form their State Constitution according to 
the provisions of the Enabling Act. In January of 1820 a bill for the admission of the State 
under the Constitution so formed was brought up in Congress. The resolution of admission 
was, however, strenuously opposed by the large and growing party of those who favored the 
exclusion of slavery from the public domain of the United States. At this juncture, how- 
ever, a proposition was made for the admission into the Union of the new free State of 
Maine. The situation was advantageous to the pro-slavery party ; for that party might 
oppose the admission of Maine as a free State until the admission of Missouri as a slave 
State should be conceded. 

The debates became angry and were extended until the i6th of February, when 
a bill coupling the two new States together, one with and the other without slavery, was 
passed. Hereupon Senator Thomas, of Illinois, made a motion that henceforth and forever 
slavery should be excluded from all that part of the Louisiana cession — Missouri excepted — 
lying north of the parallel of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes. This motion prevailed 
and became known as the Missouri Compromise, one of the most celebrated and important 
acts of American legislation — a measure chiefly supported and carried through Congress by 
the genius and persistent efforts of Henry Clay. 

A summary of the principal provisions of the Missouri compromise shows the follow" 
,ing results : First, the admission of Missouri as a slave-holding State ; second, the division 
of the rest of the Louisiana purchase by the parallel of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes ; 
third, the admission of new States to be fonned out of the territory south of that line with 
or without slavery as the people might determine ; fourth, the prohibition of slavery in all the 
new States to be organized out of the territory north of the dividing line. Thus by a 
measure of compromise and concession, the slavery agitation was allayed for twenty-eight 
years. The event, however, showed that the national disease was too deep-seated to be 
eradicated with a compromise. 



3i6 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

The conditions of prosperity in the country were now so universal that the administra- 
tion, as is common in such cases, was rewarded with good opinion and good will. The 
President came into high favor with the people. In the fall of 1820 he was reelected with 
great unanimity, as was also Mr. Tompkins, Vice-President. Perhaps at no other time in 
the history of our country since the administration of Washington has the bitterness of par- 
tisanship so nearly expired as in the year and with the event here mentioned. 

DESTRUCTION OF WEST INDIAN PIRACY. 

Early in Monroe's second term the attention of the government was recalled to the 
banning system of piracy which had sprang up in the West Indies. Commerce became so 
tinsafe in all those parts of the sea into which the piratical craft could make their way that 
an annament had to be sent out for protection. In the spring of 1822 the frigate Cort' 
gress^ with eight smaller vessels, sailed to the West Indies, and before the end of the year 
more than twenty pirate ships were run down and captured. In the following summer 
another squadron, under command of Commodore Porter, was sent to cruise about Cuba and 
the neighboring islands. The piratical retreats were found and the sea robbers who had for 
their leader the famous buccaneer Jean La Fitte were driven from their lair. Their 
establishments were broken up and their business ended by suppression. Not a pirate ship 
was left afloat to trouble further the honorable commerce of the sea. 

It was at this epoch that the government of the United States and the American 
people became deeply interested in the republican revolutions which were taking place 
in the countries of South America. Since the days of Pizarro the States in question 
had been dependencies of European monarchies ; but the political ties thus stretching 
•cross the Atlantic were broken ever and anon with declarations of independence and revo- 
lutionary wars. The situation was very similar to that which existed in 1776 between 
the Old Thirteen Colonies of North America and the mother country. It was but natural 
that the United States, successful in winning their independence, should sympathize with 
the revolutionists and patriots of the southern continent. Many leading American states- 
men espoused the cause of South American liberty and their voices were heard in behalf 
of the straggling republics beyond the isthmus of Darien. 

THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 

Foremost among the public men of the period who spoke out for the emancipation 
of the South American States was Henr)' Clay. He carried his views into Congress 
and gained the endorsement of that body to the principles which he advocated. In 
March of 1822 a bill was passed recognizing the independence of the new States of 
South America. The President sympathized with these movements and in the fol- 
lowing year took up the question in his annual message. In that document he stated 
the principle by which his administration should be governed as follows : That for 
the future the American continents were not to be considered as subjects for coloniza- 
tion by any European power. The declaration thus made, however vague it may 
■eem in the retrospect, became famous at the time, and has ever since held its place in the 
politics and diplomacy of the United States, under the name of the Monroe Doctrine — a 
doctrine by which the United States seemed to be committed to the principle that the 
western hemisphere shall be, at least theoretically, consecrated to free institutions. 

The summer of 1824 brought an incident of great rejoicing to the American people. 
The opportunity was afforded them to revive and express their gratitude to France for the 
•ympathy and aid which she had given to the United States in the War of Independence. 
The venerable Marquis de Lafayette, now aged and gray, returned once more to visit the 



I 



EPOCH OF NATIONALITY. 317 

land for whose political freedom he had given the energies of his youth and indeed shed his 
blood. Many of the veteran patriots with whom he had fought side by side came forth to 
greet him, and the younger heroes, sons of the Revolution, crowded around him. His 
journey from city to city was a continuous triumph. One of the chief objects of his 
coming was to visit the tomb of Washington. Over the dust of the Father of his Country 
the patriot of France paid the homage of his tears. He remained in the country until Sep- 
tember of 1825, when he bade final adieu to the American people and sailed for his native 
land. At his departure the frigate Brandywine — a name significant to him — was prepared 
to bear him away ; and the hour of his going was observed with every mark of affection 
and gratitude on the part of the great and rising people of the west. 

Thus came to a close the second administration of James Monroe. Political excitement 
had now reappeared in the country and there was a strong division of sentiment, largely 
sectional in its origin. Bitter personalities likewise appeared in the contest. For the first 
time the names of South and East and West were heard, and the patriotic eye might discern 
the premonitions of danger in the political phraseology of the day. 

The marshalling of parties was to a certain extent along sectional lines. John Quincy 
Adams, son of the second President, was put forward as the candidate of the East ; William 
H. Crawford, of Georgia, as the choice of the South ; while Henry Clay and Andrew Jackson 
appeared as the favorites of the West. The overwhelming preponderance of the Democratic 
party at this time made it possible for several candidates thus to enter the field ; for the rise 
of the convention system had not yet destroyed individuality in American politics. 

In the election of 1824 ^o one obtained the requisite majority of electoral votes. By 
this circumstance the election was thrown, for the second time in the history of the country, 
into the House of Representatives. By that body John Quincy Adams, though not the 
foremost candidate, was duly elected. John C. Calhoun, of South Carolina, had already 
received the requisite majority in the electoral college and was thus chosen Vice-President. 
The old administration expired and the new began with the 4th of March, 1825. 

CAREER OF J. Q. ADAMS. 

It is probable that in talents and accomplishments the new chief magistrate was the 
superior of any man who has ever occupied the presidential chair. It is not meant that in 
force of character or ability to meet great emergencies he was the equal of Washington or 
Lincoln or Grant ; but he had genius, scholarship, great attainments. From his boyhood 
he had been educated to the career of a statesman. When he was but eleven years old he 
accompanied his father, John Adams, to Europe. At Paris, Amsterdam and St. Petersburg 
the son continued his studies and thus became acquainted with the manners, languages and 
politics of the Old World. The vast opportunities of his youth were improved to the fullest 
•extent. He was destined to a public career. While still young he served his country as 
ambassador to the Netherlands, to Portugal, to Russia and to England. His abilities were 
such as to draw from Washington the extraordinar>' praise of being the ablest minister of 
which America could boast. From 1774 to 1817 his life was devoted almost wholly to 
"diplomatic services at the various European capitals. 

It should be remembered that at this period the foreign relations of the United States 
were critical in the extreme. Indeed the new republic had hardly yet been fully estab- 
lished as an independent power amongst the nations. The genius of Adams secured for his 
country the adoption of treaty after treaty. Such was his acumen, his patriotism, that in 
every treaty the rights and dignity of the United States were fully asserted and maintained. 
In 1806 Adams was chosen Professor of Rhetoric and Belles-Lettres in Harvard College, 



3i8 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Aftcnvards he was Senator for the United States from Massachusetts. On the accession of 
Monroe to the Presidency he was appointed Secretarj' of State. All the antecedents of his 
life were such as to produce in him the rarest qualifications for the Presidency to which he 
was now called. 

In one respect the new administration was less successful, less peaceful than its 
predecessor. Tlie revival of partisanship, the animosity of great party leaders, conspired to 
distract the country-, to keep the public mind from the calm pursuits of peace and to mar 
the harmony of the nation. Indeed from this epoch we may date the beginning of politics 
as a despicable trade in which the interests of the people of the United States have been 
hawked and torn, bartered and sold at the dictation of unscrupulous ambition and for mere 
personal ends. 

Soon after the accession of Adams the adherents of General Jackson and Mr. Crawford 
united in opposition to the policy of the President. A want of unanimity appeared among 
the different departments of the government. It was soon found that the supporters of the 
administration were in the minority in the Senate, while their majority in the House of 
Representatives was held only to the close of .the first session of the current Congress. The 
President favored the policy of internal improvements. That system of polity, however, 
was antagonized b}' the majority of the Democratic party, and that majority soon came into 
the ascendant. As a consequence of this break the recommendations of the President were 
neglected or condemned in Congress, and that system of internal improvements to which 
Mr. Clay gave the full resources of his genius was checked for a generation. 

DIFFICULTIES OVER INDIAN TITLES. 

Difficulties with the Indians now arose on the side of Georgia. During the first 
quarter of the century considerable portions of territory- east of the Mississippi were still held 
by the natives. In Georgia they possessed a wide domain. Here dwelt the great nation 
of the Creeks with whom the white men had had relations since the founding of the first 
colonies. In 1802 Georgia as a State relinquished her claim to the Mississippi Territon.', but 
one of the conditions of the surrender was that the government of the United States should 
purchase in the interest of Georgia all the Creek lands lying within her borders. This 
pledge the goveniment failed to fulfil. Georgia became seriously dissatisfied. The 
difiiculty grew alanning, and the general government was constrained to carrj' out the 
compact by forming a new treaty with the Creek chiefs for the purchase of their lands and 
the removal of their people to new territories beyond the Mississippi. 

Here were the elements of the ever-recurring difficulty. The Indians have been, as a 
rule, unwilling to recognize the validity of pledges made by their ancestors relative to their 
national lands. Such a thing as ownership in fee simple was unknown originally among 
the native races. They recognized the right of quit-claim, by which those occupying lands 
could alienate their own titles thereto, but not the titles of their descendants. It is for this 
reason that, since the days of King Philip, the government has found great difficulty in 
securing the extinction of the Indian titles to their lands — this for the reason that each 
generation of natives born in a given territorj' arises to claim the tribal lands with no 
recognition of a right on the part of their fathers and grandfathers to alienate those lands 
by sale or cession. 

We may pause to notice an incident of the summer of 1826. On the memorable Fourth 
of July in that year Thomas Jefferson and John Adams both expired at nearly the same 
hour. It might well impress the American mind that just fifty years to a day from the 
adoption of the Declaration of Independence the great author of that famous document and 



EPOCH OF NATIONALITY. 319 

its prncipal promoter in Congress should have passed away together. They were the two 
most conspicuous patriots of the Revohitionary epoch. They more, perhaps, than any other 
two men had agitated the question of independence and supported the measure as a policy 
for the United Colonies. Both had lifted their voices for freedom in the earliest and most 
perilous days of the Revolutionary era. Both had lived to see their country's independence 
achieved. Both had served that country in its highest official station. Both had reached 
extreme old age ; Adams was ninety, Jefferson eighty-two. Though opposed to each other 
as it respected many political principles, both were alike in patriotism and loyalty to the 
republic. It was a significant circumstance that while the cannon were booming for the 
fiftieth anniversary of the nation the two illustrious patriots should pass from among the 
living at the hour of reaching the half-centennial of their greatest work. 

DISAPPEARANCE OF WILLIAM MORGAN. 

It was in the autumn of this year that a serious social disturbance in the State of New 
York led to a temporary deflection in the political history of the times. William Morgan, 
of that State, a member of the fraternity of Free and Accepted Masons, broke with the order 
and threatened to publish its secrets. He suddenly disappeared and was never authentically 
heard of afterward. Rumors of his whereabouts gained currency, but none could ever be 
traced to a trustworthy origin. The belief became common that either his life had been 
taken or that he had been privately and permanently exiled into the obscurity of some 
foreign country. The Masons fell under the suspicion of having abducted him, and a great 
clamor was raised against the fraternity in New York. The animosity against the Masons 
extended in other parts of the country and their enemies became united as a political party. 
For many years the anti-Masonic party exercised a considerable influence in local and 
general elections. De Witt Clinton, one of the most prominent and valuable statesmen of 
New York, lost his political place and influence on account of his membership in the 
Masonic order. 

More important than these temporary agitations was the debate which now began in 
Congress with respect to the tariff". The discussions of this vital issue may be dated from 
the year 1828. By a tariff is understood a customs duty levied on imported goods. The 
object of the same is two-fold : first, to produce a revenue for the government ; secondly, to- 
raise the price of the article on which the duty is laid, in order that the domestic manu- 
facturer of the thing taxed may be able to compete with the foreign producer. In a subse- 
quent part of this work a full discussion of this question will be presented. In the present 
connection it is sufficient to note that when a customs duty is levied for the purpose of 
raising the price of the article on which the duty is laid it is called a protective tariff 

The soundness of the policy of such a tariff has been agitated in nearly all the 
civilized countries. As a rule, in the earlier parts of a nation's history, protective tariffs 
are adopted, even to the extent of shutting off foreign competition ; but with the lapse of 
time and the accumulation of capital in the given country the tendency is in the opposite 
direction. The mature people generally incline to the principle of free trade and open 
competition among the nations. 

The Congressional debates of 1828 revealed the fact that the administration and its 
supporters proper were in favor of a protective tariff. In that year a schedule of customs 
was prepared by which the duties on fabrics made of wool, cotton, linen and silk, and those 
on articles manufactured of iron, lead, etc., were much increased. This legislation wa* 
had with the primary motive of stimulating the manufacturing interests of the country. 
The question of a tariff in the United States has always taken a somewhat sectional aspect. 



3?o PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

At first the people of the Eastern and Middle States, where factories abounded, were 
fe /orable to protective duties, while the people of the agricultural regions of the South and 
'Vest opposed the protective policy. 

NEW ISSUES BEFORE THE NATION. 

Several general facts respecting the period of Adams's administration may well impress 
themselves upon the attention of the reader. It was at this epoch that the influences of 
the Revolution, more particularly of the War for Independence, subsided by the death or' 
retiracy of the great actors in that early scene, and the sentiments of a new era began to 
prevail. It was the beginning of the second epoch in the history of the United States. A 
new class of statesmen, born after the era of independence, began to direct public opinion 
and manage the affairs of government. Even the war of 1812 with its bitter antagonisms 
and absurd ending, faded gradually from the memories of men. New dispositions, new 
tastes, appeared among the people, and new issues confronted the public. Old party lines 
could no longer be traced with distinctness. The old party names had become a jargon. 
Meanwhile the United States as a nation had surpassed the most sanguine expectations of 
the fathers. The one serious danger of the times was the evidences apparent in Congress 
that the people of the United States had fallen imder the dominion of that very system 
against which the Father of his Countrj' had uttered his most solemn warnings, namely, 
the sj'stem of partisanship and purely political government, instead of a government of the 
whole people, for them and by them. 

Like his father, the younger Adams was disappointed in securing a second election to 
the Presidency. The people of the countrj', especially those of the great and rising West, 
had never taken kindly to the plan and fact of Adams's election. It was claimed that the 
result four years previously had been reached by a coalition in which there was a virtual 
agreement that the supporters of Mr. Clay in the House of Representatives should elect 
Adams on condition that the latter would make their favorite Secretary of State. This was 
done ; but there is no evidence that there was any corrupt bargain between the two dis- 
' tinguished statesmen. 

Adams received the support of Clay for reelection ; but the President was handicapped 
from the start. A new political division now became distinct, the opposition to the admin- 
istration taking the Democratic name, while the administration party took the new name 
of Whigs. Of the fonner Andrew Jackson became the acknowledged leader and standard- 
bearer in the presidential contest. He was triumphantly elected, receiving a hundred and 
■eventy-eight electoral votes against eighty-three for his opponent. The election was one 
of great excitement and passion ; but the elements fell to a calm when the decision was 
reached, and the thoughts of the people were turned to other than political interests. 

JACKSON THE MILITARY HERO. 

Andrew Jackson was a native of North Carolina. He was born in the Waxhaw country, 
March 15th, 1767. Even in his boyhood he showed in his character and conduct the 
belligerent and stormy nature within him. His mother's plan of devoting him to the 
ministr>' was hopelessly defeated. Already at the age of thirteen we have seen him in battle 
with Sumter at Hanging Rock. Captured by the British, he was maltreated and left to die 
of small-pox; but his mother secured his release from the Charleston prison and he sooh 
began the study of law. 

At twenty-one young Jackson went to Nashville. At twentj'-nine he was chosen to 
the National House of Representatives from his district in Tennessee. Here his turbulent 



EPOCH OF NATIONALITY. 321 

*nd arbitrary disposition manifested itself in full force. In 1797 he was elected to the Senate 
of the United States, where he remained for a year without making a speech or casting a 
vote. He was thoroughly disgusted with the urbane and lofty life of the Senate and 
resigned his seat to return to Tennessee. His subsequent career as a warrior and com- 
mander of men we have noted in the preceding pages. 

It is needless to remark that it was Jackson the military hero who was chosen tc the 
Presidential office. He was the first man of his kind to reach the chief magistracy of the| 
Union ; but he was more than a military hero. He possessed great native powers and 
inflexible honesty. His talents were strong, but unpolished, unadorned. His personal 
integrity was unassailable and his will like iron. He was a man of ferocity, but of the 
strictest regard for that kind of honor which was in his age uppermost in the esteem of the 
multitudes. He was one of those men for whom no toils are too arduous, no responsibilities 
too great. His personal character became strongly impressed upon the administration. 
Believing that public affair.'", would be best conducted by such means, he removed nearly 
«even hundred office-holders and appointed in their stead his own political friends. In 
defence of this course he was able to cite the precedent established by Jefferson and promoted 
to a certain extent under all the subsequent administrations. 

The accession of Jackson to the Presidency was in the nature of a revolution, not only 
political, but social. The tone of the administration was suddenly and greatly changed. 
Hitherto all the Presidents had been men of accomplishments. They had been gentlemen, 
educated and experienced in public affairs. They knew something of public policies and 
were civilians, as well as — in some cases — militar}- leaders. Coarseness and vulgarity during 
the first five Presidencies had been unknown in the government. With the rise of Jackson, 
however, the underside of American life came to the surface. The debonair and stylish 
demeanor which had marked the manners and methods of the former cliief magistrates 
disappeared from the Presidential mansion and measurably from the other departments of 
government. Jackson made no pretensions to culture or refinement and many of the coarse 
and ferocious elements of his former life obtruded themselves in the high places of power. 
It would be very erroneous to say that all dignity was wanting in the administration. On 
the contrary there was much that was dignified, more that was respectable; but the acces- 
sion of Jackson was on the whole derogatory to the refinement and culture and propriety 
which had previously prevailed about the Presidential mansion. 

ISSUES OF JACKSON'S ADMINISTRATION. 

The question of rechartering the Bank of the United States now came prominently 
before the country. It was a question with which the government had to deal. The 
President took strong grounds against issuing a new charter for that institution. He 
believed the bank to be both inexpedient and unconstitutional. He recommended that the 
charter should be allowed to expire by limitation in 1836. It could not be expected, how. 
, ever, that a concern so strong and far-reaching in its influence would yield without a 
•atruggle. The controversy with respect to the bank was precipitated by the President at 
•t»n earlier date than was natural to the situation. In 1832 a bill was passed by Congress 
to recharter the bank; but the President interposed his veto, and since a two-thirds 
majority could not be commanded for the measure the proposition for a new charter failed 
and the Bank of the United States ceased to exist. 

We have already remarked upon the new political alignment which was at this time 
effected. The people became divided into the two great factions of Whig and Democrat 
The old Federal party had lost control of national affairs with the retiracy of the elder 



32 2 PEOPLE'vS HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Adams. The party, however, continued in the field until after the war of 1812, when its 
alleged connection and responsibility for the Hartford Convention gave it a final quietus. 
Federalists, so-called, still remained in public and private life as late as the times of the 
great debates on slavery in 1820-21; but after that epoch they disappeared. Meanwhile 
the anti-Federalists had been metamorphosed, first into Republicans and afterwards into 
Democrats. The latter name held fast from the time of Jefferson's administration. Witk 
John Quincy Adams the name of Whig was introduced, and under the leadership of 
Clay and Webster the party bearing that name became organic, powerful and well fortified 
in the principles and policies which it advocated and sought to establish in the government 
of the country. 

Now it was that the tariff question, inherited from the preceding administration, was 
revived with great force and excitement. In the Congress of 1831-32 the passage of a bill 
had been secured laying additional duties on manufactured goods imported from abroad. 
By this measure the manufacturing districts of tlie United States were again favored at the 
expense of the agricultural districts. The act was especially offensive to South Carolina. 
In that commonwealth the excitement rose to a great height ; a convention of the people 
was called, and it was resolved that the tariff law of Congress was miconstitutional, and 
therefore null and void. The declaration ended with a threat of resistance should an 
attempt be made to collect the revenues in the harbor of Charleston. One division of the 
Democratic statesmen took up the cause of South Carolina, and supported what was callad 
her doctrine of nullification. 

This doctrine was advocated even to practical secession. It was boldly proclaimed in 
the United States Senate. On that issue occurred the most famous debate ever heard in 
the halls of Congress, namely, that between the eloquent Colonel Robert Young Hayne, 
Senator from South Carolina, and Daniel Webster, of Massachusetts, perhaps the greatest 
master of American oratory. The former spoke as the champion of the so-called doctrine 
of State rights, including as its practical application the right of nullification and seces- 
sion under the Constitution ; the latter as the advocate of the Constitutional supremacy of 
Congress over all the Union. 

THREATENED SECESSION OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 

History, however, had reserved another force than that of Congressional debate for the 
decision of the question. The President took the matter in hand, and issued a proclama- - 
tion denying the right of any State to nullify the laws of Congress. It was at this juncture 
that Mr. Calhoun, the Vice-President, resigned his office, to accept a seat in the Senate, 
where he might better support the doctrines and purposes of his State. The President 
solemnly warned the people of South Carolina against the consequences of pushing furthei 
the doctrine of nullification. He then ordered General Scott to proceed with a body of 
troops to Charleston, and also sent thither a man-of-war. Before this display of force the 
leaders of the nullifying party quailed, and the fatal event of secession was postponed foi 
thirty years. The excitement and discontent of the people of Carolina were presently 
allayed by a compromise proposed by Henry Clay. A bill was passed, under his strong 
advocacy, providing for the gradual reduction of the duties complained of, until at the end 
of ten years they .should reach a standard which would be satisfactory to the South. 

While the attention of the government was thus occupied with the dangerous and far- 
reaching question of the right of a State under the Constitution to nullify an act of Con- 
gress an Indian war broke out on the western frontier. Tlie Sacs, Foxes and Winnebagos, 
of Wisconsin Territor>', became hostile and took up arms in defence of what they conceived 



EPOCH OF NATIONALITY. ^^^^323 

to be their rights as a nation. The}' went into the field under the leadership and instiga- 
tion of their great chief, Black Hawk. Like Tecumtha and many other sachems who had 
risen to influence during the last century, Black Hawk dreamed of the possibility of uniting 
all the Indian nations into a confederacy against the whites. The lands of the Sacs and 
Foxes lay in what is known as the Rock River country of Illinois. While Jeflerson was 
still President these lands had been purchased by the government from the chiefs of the 
tribes, but the Indian population had never removed from the ceded territory. 

At length immigration carried the white settlements into proximity with the Indian 
country, and the natives were required to give possession. A new race of warriors had now 
arisen, however, who did not understand or recognize the force of a co-compact made by 
their fathers. They said that their fathers might quit-claim the national domain, but could 
not alienate the rights of their descendants. The government insisted on the fulfilment 
of the treaty according to the principle of warranty and fee simple. The Indians would 
not recede from their position, and war broke out. 

At the outset the militia of Illinois was called into the field. General Scott was sent 
with nine companies of artillery' to make his headquarters on the site of Chicago. His 
forces, however, were overtaken with the cholera, which now for the first time made its 
appearance in the United States. Scott was unable to cooperate with General Atkinson, 
and the latter was obliged to make the campaign against the Indians with an army of 
volunteers ; but he succeeded in defeating them in several actions and Black Hawk was 
taken prisoner. He was conveyed to Washington and other Eastern cities, where his 
understanding was opened to the power of the great nation against which he had been 
foolish enough to lift the hatchet. Being set at liberty, he returned to his own country and 
advised his people to make no further war. His influence prevailed, and the Indians soon 
afterwards abandoning the disputed lands removed into Iowa. These events belonged to the 
years 1832-33. 

WAR WITH THE CHEROKEES AND CREEKS. 

Difficulties next arose with the Cherokees of Georgia. These people had risen to the 
civilized life, and were perhaps the most humane of all the Indian races. They had 
adopted many of the manners and customs of the whites. Farms had been opened, towns 
built, schools established, printing presses set up, and a code of laws prepared in the 
civilized manner. It will be remembered that the government of the United States had 
given a pledge to Georgia to extinguish the title of the Indian lands within her borders — 
this in compensation for her cession to the government of the territory of Mississippi. The 
pledge on the part of the United States was not fulfilled ; and the lyCgislature of Georgia, 
wean,- of the delay in the removal of the Indians, passed a law abrogating the Indian gov- 
ernments within the limits of the State, and extending the laws of that commonwealth over 
all the Indian domains. 

Vainly did the natives seek to resist this iniquitous legislation. The Cherokees and 
the Creeks sought the privilege of using the State courts in the attempt to maintain their 
rights ; but such privilege was denied and the petitioners were outlawed. The Supreme 
Court of the United States, however, refused to ratify the acts of Georgia, declaring the 
same to be unconstitutional. The Indians appealed to the President, but he refused to 
interfere. On the contrary', he recommended that the Cherokees be removed to new lands 
beyond the Mississippi. Such was the contingency which led in the year 1834 to the 
organization of the Indian Territory' as a sort of reservation for the broken tribes. With 
great reluctance the Cherokees yielded to the necessity of removal. Though they had been 



324 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



paid more than five million dollars for their homes, they clung to the land of their fathers. 
Only when General Scott was directed to remove them by force did they yield to the 
inevitable and take up their march for their new homes in the West. A third conflict now 
came on with the Seminoles of Florida. The difficulty in this case was much more 
serious and resulted in a bloody war. The question involved was the right of the goveni- 
ment to remove the Seminole nation to a new domain beyond the Mississippi. This 
measure the Indians resisted. In 1835 hostilities broke out and continued with little 
interrujition for about four years. The chief of the Seminoles was the famous Osceola, a 
half-breed of great talents, warlike ambitions and audacity. He, together with Micanopy, 
another chieftain of the nation, declared that the treaty by which the Seminole lands had 
been ceded to the government was invalid ; that the fathers could only quit-claim their 
own rights and could not alienate the rights of their descendants. 

At first these protests were made openly and peaceably to the agents of the govern- 
ment ; but General Thompson, who represented the United States, offended at the haughty 
bearing of Osceola, ordered his arrest and put him in irons. While thus confined the 
chieftain, dissembling his purpose, gave his assent to the old treaty and was set free. As 
might have been foreseen, however, he immediately in revenge foniied a conspiracy against 

the whites. 

DEATH OF GENERAL THOMPSON. 

In anticipation of difficulties, the goveriinicul had sent General Clinch to Fort Drane, 
in the interior of Florida. The Indians gathered in the same vicinity in such numbers as 
to threaten the post. Major Dade, commandant of a station at the head of Tampa Bay, set 

out with a hundred and 
seventeen men to the sup- 
port of Clinch. F'or this 
force the Indians lay in 
^v ambush, fell upon them, 
"ik and slaughtered them all 
except one man. On the 
same day Osceola made a 
sudden attack upon the 
quarters of General Thomp- 
son, only fifty yards dis- 
tant from the garrison, and 
killed and scalped the 
General and his nine 
companions. General 
Clinch issued from Fort 
Drane, and on the 31st of 
December fought a hard 
battle with the Indians 
however, were obliged to fall 




DEATH OF GliNERAL THOMPSON. 



The whites. 



and repulsed them on the Withlacootchie 
back again to F'ort Drane. 

Several divisions of soldiers, one under General Scott and another under General 
Gaines, now advanced for the relief of Clinch. Gaines met the Indians on the same battle- 
field where Clinch had fought, and in February of 1835 again repulsed the savages with 
severe losses. At this time the remnants of the Creeks were obliged to quit the country and 
repair to their reservation beyond the Mississippi. 



EPOCH OF NATIONALITY. • 325 

The Seminoles, however, held out, occupying the woods and low marsh-lands of 
Florida until October of 1836, when Governor Call, of that State, marched against them 
with a force of two thousand men. A battle was fought in the Wahoo Swamp and the 
Indians were again defeated with heavy losses. They retreated for a while into the Ever- 
glades, but later in the season came forth and fought another severe battle on nearly the 
same ground. In this instance they were again defeated, but not decisively, and the war 
was transmitted to the next administration. 

We may here recount the final struggle of the President with the Bank of the United 
'States. After vetoing the recharter of that institution he had determined to prosecute his 
hostility by ordering that the surplus funds which had accumulated in the vaults of the 
bank should be distributed among the States. He had no warrant of law for such a course, 
but believing himself to be in the right he acted after his manner and took the responsi- 
bility. Accordingly, in October of 1833, he gave orders that the accumulated surplus 
funds of the great bank, amounting to fully ten million dollars, should be distributed 
among certain State banks which he designated. His idea was that the accumulation of 
so large an amount of capital at the seat of government, and in an institution having a 
quasi relation therewith was dangerous to the freedom of Congressional and executive 
action — a menace to government and a source of corruption. 

The high-handed measure of the President evoked the most violent opposition. The 
Whigs denounced the removal of the funds as unwarranted, arbitrary', dangerous and of 
incalculable mischief. A coalition was formed in the Senate under the leadership of 
Calhoun, Clay and Webster, and the President's distributing officers — nominated by him 
for the removal of the funds — were rejected. A measure of censure wa« passed in the 
Senate against him; but the proposition failed in the House of Representatives. Such was 
the outcr\' throughout the country that the administration appeared for a season to be 
almost engulfed. 

Such storms as these, however, brought out the strength of the Jacksonian character. 
The President was as fearless as he was self-willed and stubborn. He held on his course 
unmoved by the clamor. The resolution of censure stood on the journal of the Senate for 
four years, and was then not only repealed but expunged from the record through the 
influence of Senator Thomas H. Benton, of Missouri. 

FINANCIAL PANIC, AND TROUBLE WITH FRANCE. 

The distribution of the surplus funds to the designated State banKs was now effected. 
This work was followed in 1836-37 by a second and most serious financial panic. Whether 
the removal of the funds and the panic stood to each other in the relation of cause and 
effect was the great political contention of the day. The Whigs charged that the arbitrary- 
measures of the President, by disturbing the finances of the country' had precipitated the 
crisis, while the Democrats answered that the Bank of the United States with its multiform 
abuses, was itself the cause of the financial distress. It was urged by the latter party that 
such an institution was too mercenary, too powerful, too despotic to exist in a free govern' 
ment. The President himself was little concerned with the wrangling over this question; 
for he had but recently been reelected for a second term with Martin Van Buren of New 
York for Vice-President, instead of Mr. Calhoun. 

Before the Presidential election of 1 830, however, the strong will of Jackson was 
exhibited in full force in a complication with France. During the Napoleonic wars Ameri- 
can commerce had suffered much through the recklessness of French sea-captains. 
Certain claims had thus arisen and were held by the American go\-ernment against the 



326 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

French kingdom. The question of a settlement had been agitated many times. In 1831 
Louis Phillippe, the new King of France had agreed to the payment of five millions of 
dollars indemnity for the injuries done aforetime by French cruisers to American commerce. 
The authorities of the kingdom, however, were dilatory in making payment. The matter 
was procrastinated until the wrath of the American President broke out in a message whicli 
he sent to Congress recommending that reprisals be made on the commerce of France. He 
also directed the American minister at Paris to demand his passports and come home. 
These measures had the desired effect, and the indemnity was promptly paid. The govern- 
ment of Portugal, which had sinned in like manner against American commerce, was 
brought to terms with similar measures. 

The remaining statesmen and leaders of the Revolutionary epoch now rapidly passed 
away. On the 4th of July, 1831, ex-President James Monroe died in New York city. He, 
like Adams and Jefferson, expired amid the rejoicings of the national anniversary'. In the 
following year Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, last sur\'iving signer of the Declaration of 
Independence passed away at the age of ninety-six. Soon afterwards Philip Freneau, who 
had gained the distinction and name of the Poet of the Revolution, departed from the land of 
the living. The bard had reached the good age of eighty. On the 24th of June, 1833, 
John Randolph, of Roanoke, died in Philadelphia. He was a man who, though eccentric in 
character, was admired for his talents and respected for his integrity, as well as dreaded for 
his wit and sarcasm. In 1835 Chief Justice Marshall expired, at the age of four score 
years, and in the next year ex-President Madison worn with the toils of eighty-five 
years, passed away. It will be noted by the reader that most of the strong men of the 
Revolutionar)' epoch, with the distinguished exception of the Father of his Countr}-, lived 
to extreme old age. 

Disasters to property may be added to the losses of life during this epoch. On the 
1 6th of December, 1835, a fire broke out in the lower part of New York city and the build- 
ings covering thirtv acres of ground were laid in ashes. Five hundred and twentv-nine 
houses and property valued at eighteen millioii dollars were consumed. Just one year 
afterward the Patent Office and Post Office at Washington City were destroyed in the same 
manner. On the ruins of these valuable buildings more noble and imposing structures — 
which are likely to outlast the century — were soon erected. 

JACKSON'S FAREWELL. 

Other States were now added to tlie Union. In June of 1836, Arkansas with her 
fifty-two thousand square miles and population of seventy thousand, was admitted. In 
January of the following year Michigan Territory' was organized as a State and added to the 
Union. The new commonwealth brought a population of a hundred and fift>'-seven 
thousand and an area of fifty-six thousand square miles. 

As Jackson's second administration drew to a close that stern, rough patriot followed 
the example of Washington in issuing a farewell address. The document was characterized 
by the severe justice and something of the intolerant spirit which had marked the man in 
his administration. The danger of discord and sectionalism among the States was set 
forth with all the masculine energy of the Jacksonian dialect It should be said of the 
epoch and in its favor that it was a time in which the President was still President, and 
when the sleek effusions of private-secretaries and chairmen of executive committees were 
not in vogue. Jackson solemnly warned the people of tlie United States, as Washington 
had done, against the baneful influence of demagogues ; the horrors of disunion were por- 



EPOCH OF NATIONALITY. 327 

trayed in the strongest colors and the people of every rank and section were exhorted to 
maintain and defend the American Union as they would the last fortress of human liberty. 
Such was the last public paper contributed by Andrew Jackson to the political literature of 
the age. The presidential election of 1836 resulted in the choice of Martin Van Buren, of 
New York, the candidate of the Democratic party. The opposing standard-bearer was 
General William H. Harrison, of Ohio, who received the support of the new Whig party. As 
to the Vice-Presidency no one secured a majority in the electoral college, and the choice 
was devolved on the Senate. By that body Colonel Richard M. Johnson, of Kentucky, 
was duly elected. 

Martin Van Buren was bom at Kinderhook, New York, December 5th, 1782. His 
education was limited. He studied law and became a politician. In his thirtieth year he 
was elected to the Senate of his native State and six years afterwards, taking advantage of 
the anti-Masonic excitement, he succeded in supplanting De Witt Clinton as the leader of 
the Democratic party in New York. In 1821, and again in 1827, ^^ '^^^ chosen Senator 
of the United States ; but in the first year of his second term he resigned the office to accept 
the governorship of his native State. Under Jackson he received the appointment of 
Secretary of State, but soon resigned that place to become minister plenipotentiary to 
England. The President appointed him to the latter position, but when the appointment 
came before the Senate, Vice-President Calhoun, assisted by the Whig leaders Clay and 
Webster, succeeded in rejecting the nomination. Van Buren, who had been appointed 
during a recess of the Senate, returned from his unfulfilled mission, became the candidate 
for the Vice-Presidency in 1832 and was elected. Four years later he led the powerful party 
to which he belonged and succeeded General Jackson in the Presidency. 

BLOODY BATTLE WITH THE SEMINOLES. 

As already said, the Seminole war was carried over as an unfinished task to the admin- 
istration of Van Buren. The command of the southern army was transferred in 1837 from 
General Scott to General Jessup. Osceola had by this time perceived the final hopelessness 
of his cause. His revenge had been gratified by the destruction of General Thompson. 
The chief, taking advantage of the laws of war, came under a flag of truce to the Ameri- 
can camp, but being suspected of treachery was seized by the authorities and sent a 
prisoner to Fort Moultrie, where he languished for a year and died. 

The Seminoles, though disheartened by the loss of their chieftain, continued the war. 
In December of 1838, Colonel Zachary Taylor, with a force of over a thousand men, pene- 
trated the Everglad-s of Florida, and routed the savages from their lairs. After unparalleled 
sufferings he overtook the main body of the Seminoles on Christmas day, near Lake 
Okeechobee. Here a hard battle was l^ought, and the Indians were defeated, but not until 
they had inflicted a loss on the whites of a hundred and thirty-nine men. For more than 
a year Taylor continued his expeditions into the swamps. The spirit of the Indians was 
finally broken, and in 1839 the chiefs sent in their submission. They signed an additional 
treaty ; but even after this their removal to the West was made with much reluctance. 

FINANCIAL CRISIS OF 1837. 

We have already referred to the financial crisis of 1837. There had been a preceding 
brief interim of great prosperity. The national debt had been entirely liquidated. A 
surplus of nearly forty million dollars had accumulated in the treasury of the United 
States. We have already seen how President Jackson, by arbitrary measures, succeeded in 
distributing the accumulations in the Bank of the United States among the several States. 
By this measure money became suddenly abundant and speculations of all sorts grew rife. 



328 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

The credit system sprang up and prevailed more and more in all departments of busineaa 
The banks of the country were multiplied to nearly seven hundred, and vast issues of irre- 
deemable paper money were made, as if to increase the opportunities for fraud. 

These circumstances and the rapid increase of population in the West produced a great 
demand for homesteads, and the public lands were rapidly taken up. The paper money 
of the multiplied local banks was receivable at the various land-offices, and speculators aa 
well as actual settlers made a rush, with a plentiful supply of bills, to secure the best landi 
General Jackson, at that time President, perceiving that an unsound currency received in 
exchange for the national domain was likely to defraud the government out of millions of 
dollars, issued his so-called Specie Circular, in which he directed the land agents to receive 
henceforth nothing but coin in payment for the public lands. 

The effect of this measure fell upon the countr%- at the beginning of Van Buren's 
administration. The interests of the government had undoubtedly been secured ; but the 
business of the country was prostrated by the shock. The banks suspended specie pay- 
ments. Mercantile houses tottered and fell. Disaster spread through even.- avenue of 
trade. Within two months after the accession of Van Buren the failures in New York and 
New Orleans amounted to nearly one hundred and fifty million dollars. A committee of 
the business men of the former city besought the President to rescind the Specie Circulai 
and to call a special session of Congress. The fonner request was refused and the latter 
complied with, but not until tlie disasters of the country, rather than the clamors of an 
interested committee, had moved the executive to action. 

THE INDEPENDENT TREASURY BILL 

When Congress convened in Scpteniber, 1S37, many measures of relief were proposed. 
As a temporary expedient a bill was passed for the issuance of treasury notes, not to' exceed 
an aggregate of ten million dollars. The President's plan of relief was embodied in the 
measure which is known in Congressional history- as the Independent Treasur}' Bill. The 
act provided that the public funds of the nation should be kept on deposit in a treasury to 
be established for that special purpose. It was argued in support of the scheme that the 
surplus money — the excessive circulation of the country — would in the processes of trade 
and revenue drift into the independent treasury-, and lodge there, and that by this 
expedient the speculative mania would be effectually checked and prevented. It was 
believed, not without good grounds in reason and experience, that extensive speculations 
could not be carried on without a redundant currency. The pliilosophical basis of the 
President's plan was the notion of a separation between the business of the government and 
the general business of the countn-. 

The strength of the administration was sufficient to secure the passage of the Inde 
pendent Treasury Bill by the Senate, but not sufficient to overcome the opposition to th» 
measure in the House of Representatives. At the ensuing regular session of Congress, 
however, the bill was a second time brought forward and passed. By this time the sliock 
of the commercial panic had subsided ; public confidence had been restored, and business 
measurably revived. During the year 1838 most of the banks were able to resume specie 
payment. Commerce flowed back into its usual channels. The current, however, wai 
sluggish, and for some time a half-paralysis rested on the trade of the country-. Many 
enterprises of public and private moment were checked or defeated. Merchants and traders 
adopted a timid and conservative policy ; discontent prevailed among the people, and the 
administration was blamed with everything. 



EPOCH OF NATIONALITY. 329. 

THREATENING COMPLICATION WITH CANADA. 

The reader will not have forgotten the policy established by Washington of total non- 
interference with the affairs of foreign nations. The American theory, which was strictly 
adhered to during the first half-century of our national existence, was that of no complica- 
tion or entanglement with any foreign power. The year 1837 was marked by an event 
which seemed for a season to disturb and render complex the relations between the United 
States and Canada Even at that early daj' a part of the people of the Canadian provinces 
(had become dissatisfied with British rule, and an insurrection broke out having for its 
ultimate purpose the establishment of independence. 

Along the northern frontier of the United States a certain sympathy was excited for the 
rebels across the border. The insurgents received some encouragement and aid from the 
people of northern New York. A body of seven hundred men arose in that State, took up 
arms, seized and fortified Navy Island, in the Niagara river. The loyalists of Canada — they 
who remained in allegiance to the British crown and who constituted the great majority — 
made an attack on the Americans on the island, but failed to capture the place. They suc- 
ceeded, however, in gaining possession of the Caroline^ the supply-ship of the adventurers, 
and setting the vessel on fire cut her moorings and sent her over Niagara Falls, a spectacle 
to men! 

These events created much excitement in both Canada and the United States. It 
seemed indeed for a season that the peace of our country and Great Britain was in danger 
of rupture. The President, however, took the matter up and issued a proclamation of 
neutrality, in which the action of the American insurgents was disavowed. The people 
were warned against any further interference with the afiairs of Canada. General Wool was 
sent to the Niagara frontier with a sufficient force to quell the disturbance so far as the 
Americans were concerned and to piuiish those who had broken the peace. The New York 
insurgents on Navy Island were obliged to surrender and order was presently restored. 

Perhaps this international pass with Canada was the most exciting event of Van 
Buren's administration. For the rest the period was regarded as commonplace. In the 
absence of real questions about which the people might concern themselves the politicians- 
were left to create factitious issues to supply the material of popular agitation. With the 
coming of 1840 the question as to Van Buren's successor was raised; the candidates were 
soon in the field and the canvass was undertaken in a spirit of partisan bitterness. The 
measures of the administration, no less than the condition of the countr\', had been of a 
kind to provoke the sharpest political antagonisms. The Whigs were now animated with 
the hope of capturing the government. Almost a year before the Presidential election they 
sent General William H. Harrison into the field as their standard-bearer in the contest. On 
-the Democratic side Van Buren was named for reelection. He had at this juncture no 
fonnidable competitor for the leadership of his party; but the unanimity of the Democrats 
could not atone for the blunders and unsuccess, not to say the misfortunes, of the current 
»dministration. 

It is a strange and lamentable circumstance in the history of our countr>' that in times 
of peace the animosities which prevail in times of war find vent in the excitements and 
passions of political battle. 

ELECTION OF HARRISON. 

This was true in particular of the election of 1840. The Whigs made the attack with 
great vehemence. Van Buren was blamed with everything. The financial distresses of 
the country were laid at his door. Extravagance, bribery and corruption were charged 



330 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

against him. Men of business already associated for the most part with the political 
opinions of the Whigs advertised to pay six dollars a barrel for flour if Harrison should be 
elected; three dollars a barrel if Van Buren should be successful. The opposition orators 
tossed about the luckless administration through all the figures and forms of speech and 
the Prasident himself was shot at with every sort of dart that partisan wit and malice could 
invent The enthusiasm in the ranks of the Whigs rose higher and higher and Van Buren 
was overwhelmingly defeated. The result showed two hundred and thirty-four electoral 
votes for General Harrison and only si.xty for his opponent. After controlling the destinies 
of the government without a break for thirty-six years the Democratic party was tempo- 
rarily routed. For Vice-President John Tyler, of Virginia, was the successful candidate. 

Now was completed the sixth census of the United States. The results were replete 
with the evidences of national growth and progress. The revenues of the nation for 1840 
amounted to nearly twenty millions of dollars. At this time that important statistical 
information for which the subsequent reports have been noted began to appear in its full 
value. The centre of population had in the last ten years moved westward along the 
thirty-ninth parallel of latitude from the south fork of the Potomac to Clarksburg in the 
present State of West Virginia, a distance of fifty-five miles. The inhabited area of the 
United States now amounted to eight hundred and seven thousand square miles, being an 
increase since 1830 of twenty-seven and six-tenths per cent. The frontier line circum- 
scribing the population passed through Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa and the western borders 
of Missouri, Arkansas and Louisiana, a distance of three thousand three hundred miles. 
The population had reached an aggregate of seventeen million souls, being an increase since 
1830 of more than six millions. It was found from the tables that eleven-twelfths of the 
people lived outside of the larger cities and towns, showing a strong preponderance of the 
agricultural over the manufacturing and commercial interests. One of the most cheering 
lessons of the census was found in the fact that the wonderful growth of the United States 
was in extetit and area and not in accumulation — in the spread of civilization rather than 
in an increase in intensity^ for during the last decade the average of the population of the 
country had not increased by so much as one person to the square mile. 

The common judgment has been that the administration of Van Buren was weak and 
inglorious. It appears to have been characterized by few important episodes and to have 
been controlled by principles some of which were bad. But the President and his times 
together were unfortunate rather than vicious. He was the victim of the evils which fol- 
lowed hard upon the relaxation of the Jacksonian methods of government. That kind of 
government could not long be maintained in the United States. The four years of Van 
Buren' s administration were the ebb tide between the belligerent excitements of 1832 and 
the war with Mexico. The financial panic added opprobrium to the popular estimate of 
the imbecility of the government. "The administration of Van Buren," said a bitter 
eatirist, *' is like a parenthesis; it may be read in a low tone of voice, or altogether omitted 
without injuring the sense." But the sarcasm was not true — or true only in part. 

The new President was by birth a Virginian. He was a son of Benjamin Harrison, 
signer of the Declaration of Independence ; the adopted son of Robert Morris. He was 
a graduate of Hampden and Sydney College, and afterwards a student of medicine ; but the 
military' life drew him from his study and he entered the anny of St. Clair. He rose by 
rapid promotion to be governor of Indiana Territory'. His military career in the northwest 
has been already narrated. He was inaugurated President on the 4th of March, 1841, and 
began his duties by issuing a call for a special session of Congress, to consider "sundry 



EPOCH OF NATIONALITY. 331 

important matters connected with the finances of the country." An able cabinet was 
organized, with Daniel Webster at the head as Secretary of State. 

DEATH OF HARRISON AND ACCESSION OF TYLER. 

At the outset everything seemed to promise well for the new Whig administration ; but 
before Congress could convene the venerable President, already sixty-eight years of age, 
sickened and died just one month after his inauguration. It was the first time that such an 
event had occurred in American history. Profound and universal grief was manifested over 
the death of the chief magistrate. 

On the 6th of April, 1841, John Tyler took the oath of office and became President of 
the United States. He was a statesman of considerable distinction, a native of Virginia, a 
graduate of William and Mary. At first a lawyer, he soon left his profession to become a 
politician. He was chosen a member of Congress and in 1825 was elected governor of 
Virginia. From that position he was sent to the Senate of the United States and now at 
the age of fifty-one was called to the Presidency. He had been put upon the ticket with 
■General Harrison through motives of expediency ; for although a Whig in most of his 
political principles, he was known to be hostile to the Bank of the United States. This 
hostility was soon to be manifested in a remarkable manner. 

The Whig Congress convened in the highest spirits. One of the first measures pro- 
posed at the session, which lasted from May to September, was the repeal of the Independ- 
ent Treasury Bill. A general Bankrupt law was passed by which a great number of 
insolvent business men were released from the disabilities under which they had fallen 
in the financial panic. The next measure was the proposition to recharter the Bank of the 
United States. The old charter had expired five years previously; but the bank had con- 
tinued in operation under a charter granted by the State of Pennsylvania. A bill to 
rehabilitate the institution in its national character was now brought forward and passed; 
but the President interposed his veto. A second time the bill was presented in a modified 
form and received the sanction of both Houses, only to be rejected by the executive. This 
action produced a fatal rupture between the President and his party. The indignant Whigs, 
unable to command a two-thirds' majority in Congress, turned upon him with storms of 
invective. All the members of the Cabinet except Mr. Webster resigned their seats; and 
that statesman retained his place only because of a pending difficulty with Great Britain. 

A contention had arisen with that country relative to the northeastern boundary of the 
United States. Our territorial limit in that direction had not been clearly defined by the 
treaty of 1783. The commissioners at Ghent in 1814 had contributed little to the solution 
of the difficulty. That polite and easily satisfied convention had postponed the question 
rather than settled it. It was agreed, however, to refer the establishment of the entire line 
between the United States and Canada to the decision of three commissions which were 
to be appointed by the respective governments. The first of these three bodies awarded to 
the United States the islands in the Bay of Passamaquoddy. The third commission per- 
fonned its duty by fixing the international line from the intersection of the forty-fifth 
parallel of latitude with the river St. Lawrence to the western point of Lake Huron. To 
the second commission was assigned the more difficult task of settling the boundary from 
the Atlantic to the St. Lawrence. This work they failed to accomplish. 

THE WEBSTER-ASHBURTON TREATY. 

For nearly a quarter of a century the boundary of the United States on the northeast 
remained in uncertainty. At times the difficulty assumed a serious aspect. At last the 
whole question was referred to Lord Ashburton, acting on the part of Great Britain, and 



332 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Daniel Webster, the American Secretary of State. Tlie discussion of the question was as 
able as the matter involved was intricate. Finally, however, a satisfactory solution was 
reached; and the international boundary was established as follows: From the mouth of the 
river St. Croi.x, ascending that stream to its westernmost fountain; from that fountain due 
north to the St. John's; thence with that river to its source on the watershed between the 
Atlantic and the St. Lawrence; thence in a southwesternly direction along the crest of the 
highlands to the northwestern source of the river Connecticut; thence down that stream 
to the forty-fifth parallel of latitude, and thence with that parallel to the St. Lawrence. 

By a second agreement of the commissioners the boundan,' was established from the 
western point of Lake Huron through Lake Superior to the northwestern extremity of the 
Lake of the Woods ; thence — confirming the treaty of October, 1818 — southward to the 
forty-ninth parallel of latitude, and thence with that parallel to the Rocky Mountains. This 
important settlement, known as the Webster-Ashburton treaty, was completed on the 9th 
of August, 1842, and was ratified by the Senate on the 20th of the same month. 

The following year was marked by a peculiar domestic trouble in Rhode Island. For 
nearly two centuries the government of that commonwealth had rested upon the old charter 
granted by Charles II. There had always been in Rhode Island a certain residue of loyalism 
unfavorable to republican institutions. The ancient charter contained a clause restricting 
the right of suffrage to property-holders of a certain grade. The spirit of modern democrac>- 
fretted against this restriction, and an attempt was made to remove it from the Constitution 
of the State. 

On this question the people were almost unanimous, but the maimer of effecting the 
change was violently debated. One faction calling itself the Law and Order party, and 
proceeding under the old Constitution, chose Sanmel W. King as governor. The other 
faction, known as the Suffrage party, acting in an irregular way, elected Thomas W. Dorr. 
In May of 1842 both parties proceeded to organize their rival governments. The Law and 
Order party undertook to suppress the Suffragists and the latter attempted to capture the 
State arsenal. Defeated in this purpose, they took arms a second time, until they were 
dispersed by a detachment of soldiers sent to Rhode Island by the general government. 
Dorr fled from the State, but returning soon afterwards was caught, tried for trea.son, 
convicted and sentenced to imprisonment for life. He was offered pardon on condition of 
taking the oath of allegiance, but he stubbornly refused and was confined until June of 
1845, when he was liberated without conditions. 

DEDICATION OF BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 
In 1842 was completed the Bunker Hill niouunient. The event called forth great 
enthusiasm, not only in Boston, but throughout the country. The foundation of the great 
shaft had been laid on the 17th of June, 1825, the corner-stone being put into place by the 
venerable Lafayette. Daniel Webster, then young in years and fame, delivered the oration, 
while two hundred Revolutionary veterans — forty of them survivors of the battle fought on 
that hill-crest just fifty years before — gathered with the throng to hear him. The work of 
erection went on slowly. Seventeen years elapsed before the shaft was finished. The 
column was of Quincy granite, thirty-one feet square at the base and two hundred and 
twenty-one feet in height. The dedication was postponed until the next succeeding anni- 
versary of the battle. On the 17th of June, 1S43, an immense multitude, includui^ "^t 
of the survivors of the Revolution, gathered from all parts of the countr>' to participate m 
the ceremonies, Webster, now full of vearsand honors, delivered the dedicator^' oration, 



EPOCH OF NATIONALITY. 



333 



one of the most able and eloquent ever pronounced in ancient or modem times. The 
exercises were concluded with a public dinner in Faneuil Hall, the cradle of American 
liberty. 

During the last years of Tyler's administration the State of New York was seriously 
■disturbed by a dispute concerning the land titles in that part of the country once held by 
the Dutch patrons. Until the year 1840 the descendants of Van Rensselaer had held claims 
on certain lands in the counties of Rensselaer, Columbia and Delaware. In consideration 
of these claims they had continued to receive from the farmers owning the lands certain 
trifling rents, but the payment of these rents at length became annoying to the farmers and 
they rebelled against the Van Rensselaer claims. The question was in the Legislature of 
N.ew York from 1840 to 1844. By the latter date the anti-rent party had become so strong 
as to prevent the payment of the quit-rents, even by those who were willing to make them. 
The paying renters were coated with tar and feathers and driven from the settlements. 




VIEW OF SALT LAKE CITY. 

Officers were sent to apprehend the rioters and them they killed. Time and again the 
authorities of the State were invoked to quell the disturbances, and it was a long time before 
the excitement subsided. To the present day, indeed, there never has been any formal 
adjustment of the difficulty. 

RISE OF THE MORMONS. 
To this period in our country's history belongs the rise of the Mormons. This sect, 
under the leadership of their prophet, Joseph Smith, made their first important settlements 
m Jackson county, Missouri. Here their numbers increased to fifteen hundred. They were a 
peaceable people, and others flocked to the community. Elated with their success, the Mor- 
.mons began to say that the Great West was destined to be their inheritance. The and- 



334 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Monnon population round about became excited, and determined to rid themselves of 
their prosperous neighbors. The militia was called out and the Mormons were driven from 
the State. In the spring of 1839 they crossed the Mississippi into Illinois, and on a high 
plateau overlooking the river laid out a new city, to which they gave the name of Nauvoo. 
meaning Tlie Beautiful. Here they proceeded to build a splendid temple, for the ideas of 
the connnunity were those of antiquity and the Orient. There was to be a governing 
priesthood, and the Mormon people, like ancient Israel, were to have their life-centre in the 
temple. 

The Latter Day Saints — for by that name the Mormons would be called — rapidly 
increased. Immigrants and converts came from many parts of the United States and from 
Europe. The settlement soon reached a population of ten thousand. This extraordinary 
growth and the peculiar manners and doctrines of the Saints roused the hatred of the peo- 
ple round about, who in abilities, refinement and culture were by no means the equals of 
the Mormons. There were soon two parties. Some of the laws enacted by Smith's fol- 
lowers were contrary to the statute of Illinois. The Monnons were charged with certain 
thefts and murders and it was said tliat the courts about Nauvoo were powerless to adminis- 
ter justice in the case of these criminals. 

As the excitement rose. Smith and his brother Hiram were arrested, taken to Carthage 
and put in jail. On the 27th of June, 1844, a mob gathered, broke open the jail doors 
and killed the prisoners. Other hostilities followed during the summer. In 1S45 the State 
Legislature annulled the charter of Nauvoo, and the Mormons were left at the mercy of 
their enemies. At length they despaired of keeping their place in Illinois and a great 
majority determined to exile themselves beyond the limits of civilization. They made their 
preparations for an exodus, and in 1846 began their march to the far-off, unknown West 
In September Nauvoo was cannonaded for three days and the remnant of the Saints were 
driven forth to join their companions in exile. The second band came up with the main 
company at Councils Bluffs, Iowa. Thence the great march was begun across the illimita- 
ble prairies and the Rocky Mountains. The Monnons reached the basin of the Great Salt 
Lake by way of Marshall's Pass and the Gunnison. There they founded Utah Territor)', 
believing themselves, as indeed they were, beyond the pale of their enemies. Sucli were 
the beginnings of that complication which after the lapse of nearly half a century has noJ 
yielded either to the force of logic or the logic of force. 






CHAPTER XXIII. 




WAR WITH MEXICO. 

have now arrived at the beginnings of the most serious 
complications in which the United States was involved 
between the treaty of Ghent and the outbreak of the 
civil war. The flux of Anglo-American civilization 
westward brought the vanguard of our American race 
at length to the borders of Mexico, "and with that His- 
panio-American power we were now to be involved in 
a brief but severe conflict for the possession of the 
imperial territories stretching from Missouri to the 
Pacific Ocean. 

The agitation, upon an account of which we are 
here to enter, arose respecting the republic of Texas. 
That great State, if State it might be called, lying 
between Louisiana and Mexico had been from 1821 to 1836 a province of the latter repub- 
lic. It had been the policy of Spain aforetime, while Mexico flourished and the United 
States grew apace to keep Texas unpeopled; for by this policy it was possible to interpose 
an impassable barrier between the aggressive American race and the Mexican borders. This 
method of checking the expansion of the United States on the south-west was taken up by 
Mexico after the achievement of her independence in 1821, and Texas remained as before; 
an unpeopled empire. 

At length, however, Moses Austin, of Connecticut, obtained a large land-grant on 
condition that he should establish a colony of three hundred American families within the 
limits of his Texan domain. This grant was confirmed to his son Stephen Austin, with 
the enlarged privilege of establishing five hundred families of immigrants. These charters 
were obtained from the government of Mexico, and between the years of 1820 and 1833 
the American settlements in Texas had become so strong and well established as to furnish 
the nucleus of the Texan rebellion against the government of Mexico. That government 
had become oppressive, and held in its methods all the vices which have characterized the 
Spaniards and Spanish- Americans in the attempted establishment of free institutions. 

REMEMBER THE ALAMOI 
Against such methods the Texans, already enjoying a sort of semi-independence, took 
up arms in the year 1835 and rallied in a general rebellion. War broke out between the 
parent State and the revolted province. Hereupon many adventurers and some heroes from 
the United States came hurrying to the scene of action and espoused the Texan cause. 
The first battle of the war was fought at Gonzales, and here a Mexican army numbering 
about a thousand was defeated by a Texan force of half the number. On the 6th of March, 
1836, the old Texan fort of the Alamo de Bexar, near San Antonio, was surrounded by the 
Mexicans, eight thousand strong, under command of Santa Anna, President of Mexico. 
The garrison, though feeble in numbers, made a heroic defence, but was overpowered and 

(335) 



336 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



massacred under circumstances of g^eat atrocity. Here it was that the daring David 
Crockett, an e.\-Congressman of Tennessee and a famous hunter of beasts and men, was 
killed. In the following month was fought the decisive battle ot San Jacinto, in which 
the small American army, commanded by General Sam Houston, annihilated the host of 
Santa Anna and achieved the freedom of Texas at a blow. The independence of the new 
State was acknowledged by the United States, by Great Britain and by France, and Mexico 
was obliged to yield. Texas became an independent republic a"d a government was 
organized on the model of that of the United States. 

It soon appeared, however, that the movement for Texan independence had been 
inspired by the ulterior naotive of gaining admission into the American Union. No sooner 
had the Texans gained their independence than they began to make petition for a place as 
a State in our republic. The first application of this kind was made during the adminis- 
tration of Van Buren ; but the Presi- 



dent, fearing a war with Mexico, 
declined to entertain the proposal. 
For four or five years the question 
lay dormant, but by no means dead. 
In the last year of Tyler's adminis- 
tration it sprang up more vital than 
ever. The population of Texas had 
by this time reached more than two 
hundred thousand souls. The Terri- 
tory had an area of two hundred and 
thirty-seven square miles, more than 
five times as great as the State of 
Pennsylvania! It was like the annex- 
ation of an empire. 

Immediately the question of 
annexing Texas to the American 




MKKTINr, I'l.ACK OK THH KIRST TEXAN CONGRESS. 

Union became political. It was indeed the great question on which the people divided in 
the Presidential election of 1844. Nor will the thoughtful reader, nearing the close of the 
centurj', fail to discern in this old question of annexation the profound problem of slavery. 
Freedom in the free States had found a vent in the northwest, looking even beyond the 
Rocky Mountains to the Pacific ; but slavery and the slave States seemed to be hampered 
on the southwest. Would not Texas open to the " peculiar institution " a field as broad 
and promising as that possessed by the Northern States ? Could not the equipoise between 
the two parts of the Union be thus maintained ? 

In these questions and through them we may discover the bottom reason why the 
people of the South for the most part favored the annexation of Texas and why the propo- 
sition was received so coldly in the North. Again, the project was favored by the Democrats 
and opposed by the Whigs ; so that here we have the beginning of that sectionalism in 
party politics which has not yet disappeared from the nation. 

In the presidential contest of 1844 the two parties were nearly equally matched in 
strength. For this reason, and for the exciting nature of the issues involved, the contest 
surpassed in vehemence anything which had hitherto been known in American history. 
James K. Polk, of Tennessee, was nominated as the Democratic candidate, while the Whigs 
chose their favorite leader Henry Clay. The fonner was elected. Though the fame of the 



EPOCH OF NATIONALITY. 337 

latter and his idolatry by the Whig party were unabated, yet his hope of reaching the 
Presidency was forever eclipsed. As Vice-President George M. Dallas, of Pennsylvania, 
was chosen. 

FIRST USE OF THE TELEGRAPH. 

An incident of another kind belonging to these days is worthy of special note. On 
the 29th of May, 1844, the news of the nomination of Polk was transmitted from Balti- 
more to Washington City by the magnetic telegraph. It was the first despatch of such 
kind ever sent by man, and the event marks an era in the history of civilization. The 
inventor of the telegraph which was destined to revolutionize the method of the rapid trans- 
mission of infonnation and to introduce a new epoch in history, was Professor Samuel F. 
B. Morse, of Massachusetts. The magnetic principle on which the telegraph depends for 
its efficiency had been known to scientific men since 1774; but Professor Morse was the 
first to put the great discovery into the form of invention. He began his experiments in 
1832, and wrought at the problem for five years before he obtained his first patent. He 
had in the meantime to contend with every species of prejudice and ignorance which the 
low grade of human intelligence could produce. After the issuance of the patent there was 
a long delay, and it was not until the last days of the Congressional session in 1 843 that 
the inventor succeeded in obtaining an appropriation of thirty thousand dollars. With 
that appropriation was constructed between Washington and Baltimore the first telegraphic 
line in the world. Perhaps no other single invention has exercised a wider or more benefi- 
cent influence on the welfare, progress and happiness of mankind. 

The question of the annexation of Texas would not down. In December of 1844 * 
formal proposition for the addition of that republic to the Union was made in Congress 
Debates followed at intervals during the winter, and on the ist of March, 1845, the bill of 
annexation was passed. The President immediately gave his assent, and the Lone Sta» 
took its place in the American constellation. On the day before the inauguration of Polk, 
bills for the admission of Florida and Iowa were signed by Tyler; but the latter State, 
being the twenty-ninth in number, was not formally admitted until the following year. 

James Knox Polk,. sixteenth President of the United States, was a native of North 
Carolina, bom November 2d, 1795. At the age of eleven he removed with his father to the 
new State of Tennessee. In 181 8 he was graduated from the University of North Carolina. 
During his early manhood he was the /r(9/^^^ of Andrew Jackson. His first public office 
was a membership in the legislature of Tennessee. Afterwards he was elected to Congress 
where he served as Speaker for fourteen years. In 1839 he was chosen governor of Ten- 
nessee and from that position was called at the age of forty-nine to the Presidential chair. 
At the head of the new cabinet as Secretary of State was placed James Buchanan, of Penn- 
sylvania. It was an office requirii:g high abilities, for the threatening question with 
Mexico came at once to a crisis. 

As soon as the resolution for Texan annexation to the United States was adopted by 
CJongress, Almonte, the Mexican Minister at Washington, demanded his passports and 
indignantly left the country. The Congressional resolution of annexation was formally 
approved by the legislature of Texas on the 4th of July, 1S45; the union was an acconip 
plished fact. But the Texan authorities knew well that Mexico would go to war rather 
than accept the extension of the American borders to her frontier line. A deputation was 
accordingly sent with all haste to the President of the United States requesting that a« 
American army be at once despatched to Texas for the protection of the State. In response 
to this petition General Zachary Taylor was ordered to march from Camp Jessup in Western 
liOuisiana to occupy Texas. 



338 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

QUESTIONS WHICH LED TO THE WAR WITH MEXICO. 

The real question between that State — now a member of the American Union and 
supported by the general government — on the one side and Mexico on the other was the 
question of boundaries. Perhaps the bare fact of annexation would have been borne by 
Mexico, for she had already assented nearly ten years previously to Texan independence ; 
but her assent to annexation was conditioned upon her right to dictate the boundary line 
between her own territories and those of Texas. 

The issue here presented went back to the date of Mexican independence. In 1821 
Mexico had thrown off the authority of Spain and instituted a government of her own. In 
doing so she had rearranged her provinces. She had united in one the two provinces of 
Coahuila and Texas. These were the frontier Mexican States east of the Rio Grande. 
Over this united province she had established a common government and this government 
was maintained until it was broken by the Texan rebellion of 1836. Texas being suc- 
cessful in her revolt against the parent State, naturally claimed that her own independence 
so achieved carried with it the independence of Coahuila and that therefore the territory of 
the latter province became by the revolution an integral part of the new Texan republic. 
These views were held also by the people of Coahuila. The joint legislature of that State 
and of Texas passed a statute in December of 1836 declaring the integrity of the two 
States under the common name of Te.xas. Mexico insisted, however, that Texas only and 
not Coahuila had revolted against her authority and that the latter State was therefore still 
rightfully a part of the Mexican dominions. 

It thus happened that the new State of Texas, now a member of the American Union, 
claimed the Rio Grande as her western limit, while Mexico was determined to have the 
river Nueces for the separating line. The large territory between the two provinces was in 
dispute. The Government of the United States made a proposal to have the difBculty 
settled by negotiation, but Mexico scornfully refused. To her the question was clear and 
needed no arbitration. The refusal was construed by the Americans as a virtual confession 
that the Mexican government was in the wrong and upon this conviction the claim of the 
Rio Grande was stoutly maintained by our government. General Taylor was instnicted to 
advance his army as near to that river as circumstances would warrant and to hold his posi- 
tion against aggression. Under these orders the American forces were moved forward to 
Corpus Christ!, at the mouth of the Nueces, where a camp was established and there Taylor 
gathered an army of four thousand five hundred men. Such was the situation at the end 
of 1845. 

With the opening of tlie next year a critical step was taken. Taylor was ordered for- 
ward to the Rio Grande. It was known that the Mexican government would not receive 
an American ambassador. It was also learned that a Mexican anny was gathering in the 
northern part of the republic for a counter-invasion of Texas, or at least for the occupation 
of the disputed territory. 

General Taylor obeyed his orders. On the 8th of March, 1846, he advanced from 
Corpus Christi to Point Isabel on the Gulf of Mexico. There a depot of supplies wa*n 
established and the march was continued to the Rio Grande. The American army reached 
that river at a point opposite the town of Matamoras and there erected a fortress named 
Fort Brown. 

BEGINNING OF HOSTILITIES. 
This invasion of what had once been the province of Coahuila was regarded by Mexico 
9& an act of war. On the 26th of April General Arista arrived at Matamoras and took com- 



EPOCH OF NATIONALITY. 



339 



tnand of the Mexican forces. On the following day Taylor reached the other side of tha 
river. Arista at once notified him that hostilities had begun. On the same day a company 
of American dragoons commanded by Captain Thornton was attacked by a body of Mexi- 
cans who had crossed the Rio Grande into the disputed territor>'. Here the war began. 
Sixteen of the American force were killed or wounded and the remainder were oblio-ed to 
surrender. 

On the right bank of the Rio Grande there was now great activity. A Mexican force 
crossed the river below the American position and threatened Taylor's communications. 
The American General deemed it expedient to retire to Point Isabel and strengthen his 
defences. The fort opposite Matamoras, however, was kft in charge of Major Brown with 
a garrison of three hundred men. The Mexicans witnessed the falling back of the Ameri- 
can anny with great jubilation. The Republican Monitor^ a Mexican newspaper of Mata- 
moras, published a flaming editorial declaring that the cowardly invaJers of Mexico had fled 
like a gang of poltroons and were using every exertion to get out of the country. General 
Arista shared this delusion, believing that the Americans had fled away and that his only 
remaining duty was to cannonade and demolish Fort Brown; this should end the war. 

Taylor, however, had little thought of receding before the foe. Having strengthened 
his position at Point Isabel, he at once set out with his trains and an army of two thousand 
men to return to Fort Brown. The Mexicans to the number of six thousand had now 
crossed the Rio Grande and taken position at Palo Alto. This place lay directly in Tay- 
lor's way. At noon on the 8th of May the Americans came up and the first general battle 
of the war was begim. The engagement was severe, lasting five hours. The Mexicans 
near sunset were driven from the field with the loss of a hundred men. The American 
artillery inflicted the 
greater amount of 
damage. It could but 
be observed by Taylor 
that the fighting of the 
Mexicans was clumsy 
and inefiective. Only ^f 
four Americans were '■~^' 
killed and forty wounded ; 
but among the fonner 
was the gallant Major 
Ringgold, of the artil- 
lery. 

The fight of Palo 
Alto was indecisive. 
The Mexicans fell back 
and General Taylor 
prosecuted his march. 
Wlien the American army was 
again encountered. They had rallied in full 
called Resaca de la Palma. Here an old 
lay across the road along which the Americans were making their way in the direction 
of Fort Brown. The Mexican artillery was planted to command the approach. At 
the first the Americans were galled; but a charge was made by Captain May with his 




CAPTURE OF THK MEXICAN BATTERY BY CAPTAIN MAY. 



within three miles of Fort Brown, the Mexicans were 
force and planted themselves at a place 
river bed, dry and overgrown with cacti. 



340 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

dragoons; the Mexican batteries were captured and General La Vega taken at the guns. 
Hereupon the Mexicans flung away their accoutrements and fled. Nor did they pause until 
they had put the Rio Grande between themselves and their pursuers. 

After his battle and victory Taylor continued his march to Fort Brown. He found 
that that place had been constantly bombarded from Matamoras during his absence. A 
brave defence had been made and the garrison had held out, but Major Brown, the com- 
mandant had fallen. Such were the first passes of the struggle. 

PREPARATIONS FOR THE STRUGGLE. 

The news of the things done on the Rio Grande carried wild excitement to all parts of 
the United States. The war spirit flamed out everywhere. Even party dissensions were 
for a while hushed and Whigs and Democrats alike nished forward to fill the ranks. The 
President sent a message to Congress in which he laid the blame of the conflict on the law- 
less soldiery of Mexico, alleging that they had shed the blood of American soldiers on 
American soil. Congress promptly responded and on the nth of May, 1S46, declared that 
"war already existed by the act of the Mexican governmeuL" Ten millions of dollars 
were promptly placed at the disposal of the government and the President was authorized 
to accept the services of fifty thousand volunteers. In all the States war meetings were 
held and in a short time about three hundred thousand men offered themselves for the 
service. 

Only a small part of this number could be accepted. It remained, indeed, for the regu- 
lar army of the United States to do most of the fighting in our war with Mexico. Trained 
officers were sent to the field of operations. General Scott was made commander-in-chief. 
The American forces were organized- in three divisions: the Anny of the West, under 
General Kearney, to cross the Rocky Mountains and conquer the northern Mexican provinces; 
the Ami)- of tlie Centre, under General Scott himself, to march from the gulf coast into the 
heart of the enemy's country, and the Army of Occupation, commanded by General Taylor, 
to subdue and hold the districts on the Rio Grande. 

The duty of mustering in and organizing the volunteer forces was assigned to General 
Wool. By midsummer of 1846 that officer succeeded in despatching to General Taylor a 
force of nine thousand men. He then established his headquarters and camp at San 
Antonio, Texas. From this vantage he sent forward the various divisions of recruits to the 
field. Meanwhile active operations were resumed on the Rio Grande. Ten days after the 
battle of Resaca de la Palma General Taylor crossed to the IMexican side and captured 
Matamoras. He then began to march up the right bank of the river and into the interior. 
By this time the Mexicans having felt the impact of American mettle grew wary of their 
antagonists. They fell back to the old town of Monterey, which they fortified and held 
against Taylor's advance. The latter was not able at this time to leave the Rio Grande on 
account of the smallness of his forces. He was obliged to remain inactive until Augu.st 
before his army was sufficiently augmented to justify further battle with the enemy. 

STORMING OF MONTEREY. 

By this time, nowever, his force was increased to six thousand men, and he at once .set 
out against Monterey. Arriving at that place on the 19th of September, he immediately 
invested the town. Monterey was occupied by the Mexicans ten thousand strong under 
General Ampudia. But disparity of numbers had already come to be disregarded by the 
Americans. They began the siege of INIonterey with great vigor, and on the 21st of Sep- 
tember made an assault on the rear of the town. The heights on that side were carried by 



EPOCH OF NATIONALITY. 



341 



the forces under Worth. Here was situated the Bishop's Palace, a strong building com- 
manding the entrance. But on the next day this place also was carried, and on the next 
Monterey was stormed by the divisions of General Oiiintman and Butler. The Americans 
charging through the streets gained the Grand Plaza, hoisted the Union flag, and routed the 
enemy from the buildings in which they had taken refuge. The attacking parties were 
obliged to charge up dark stairways, explore unknown passages, traverse the flat roofs of 
houses and expose themselves to every hazard. But the enemy was driven to an igno- 
minious surrender. Ampudia was granted the honors of war on condition that he vacate 
the city, which he did on the morrow. Taylor's victory kindled the enthusiasm and war 
spirit of the Americans to a higher pitch than ever. * 

News now reached General Taylor that negotiations for peace had been opened at the 
Mexican capital. Deceived by this intelligence, he agreed to an armistice of eight weeks^ 
during which hostilities should cease, but the matter was a 
mere ruse on the part of the enemy for gaining time. It was 
at this juncture that the celebrated General Antonio Lopez de 
Santa Anna was called home from Havana, where he was 
living in exile. He was at once made President of the 
republic and commander-in-chief of the Mexican 
armies. Though the enemy still boasted, it was 
clear that alarm had taken the place of confidence. 
During the autumn of 
1 846 an army of twenty ■^')T[^ 
thousand Mexicans was 
raised and sent into 
the field. As soon as 
the annistice in the 
north expired Taylor 
assumed the offensive. 
General Worth moved 
southwest from Mon- 
terey a distance of 
seventy miles, and cap- 
tured the town of 
Saltillo. Victoria, a 
city of Tamaulipas, 

was taken by the division of General Robert Patterson. To that place General Butler 
advanced from Monterey on a march against Tampico. That position, however, had 
in the meantime been taken by Captain Conner of the American na\y. General Wool 

* A correspondent of the Louisville Courier wrote a touching incident of this battle. He says: " In the 
midst of the conflict a Mexican woman was busily engaged in carrying bread and water to the wounded men of 
both armies. I saw the ministering angel raise the head of a wounded man, give him water and food, and then 
bind up the ghastly wound with a handkerchief she took from her own head. After having exhausted her 
supplies, she went back to her house to get more bread and water for others. As she was returning on her 
mission of mercy, to comfort other wounded persons, I heard the report of a gun, and the poor innocent creature 
fell dead. I think it was an accidental shot that struck her. I would not be willing to believe otherwise. It 
made me sick at heart ; and, turning from the scene, I involuntarily raised my eyes toward heaven, and thought, 
Great God ! is this war ? Passing the spot the next day I saw her body still lying there, with the bread by her 
ride, and the broken gourd, with a few drops of water in it — emblems of her errand. We buried her ; and while 
W» were digging her grare, cannon-balls flew around us like hail." 




PATHETIC INCIDENT OF THE BATTLE OF MONTEREY. 



342 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



set forward in person from San Antonio, Texas, and came within supporting distance of 
Monterey. General Scott arrived at this juncture and assumed command-in-chief of the 
American army. 

Meanwhile General Kearney at the head of the army of the West had set out foi the 
conquest of New Mexico and California. His march to Santa Fe was wearisome in the last 
degree, but by the i8th of August he reached and captured that city. New Mexico was 
taken by a cmtp de main. Having garrisoned Santa Fe, Kearney at the head of four hundred 
dragoons set out for California. After a progress of three hundred miles he was joined by 
the famous Kit Carson, who brought him intelligence that California had already been 
wrested from Mexican authority. Hereupon Kearney sent back the larger part of his 
forces, and with only a hundred troopers made his way to the Pacific. 

CONQUEST OF CALIFORNIA. 

Stirring events had in the meantime happened on that far coast. For four years Colonel 
yohn Charles Fremont had been engaged in explorations through and beyond the Rocky 
Mountains. He had hoisted the American flag on the highest peak of that mighty range, 




KRKMONT HOISTINT, THK STARS AND STRIPES ON THK LOFTIEST PEAK OF THK ROCKY ^tO^•^■TAI^'S. 

and then set out for the Great Salt Lake and afterwards for Oregon. From the latter' 
territory he turned southward into California, where on his arrival he learned of the 
impending war with Mexico. Seizing the situation and assuming all responsibility he 
incited the few American residents in California to revolt against Mexico. First of all the 
frontiersmen of the Sacramento valley gathered around his standard, and the campaign was 
organized for the subversion of Mexican authority. Several minor engagements were had 




EPOCH OF NATIONALITY. 343 

with the Spanish-Mexican posts, but the Americans were uniformly successful, and the 
authority of Fremont was rapidly extended over the greater part of Upper and Central 
California. 

While these events were happening in the north Commodore Sloat of the American 
navy was carrying forward a similar work in the south. Arriving off the coast of Monterey, 
about eighty miles south of San Francisco, he captured the place and raised the American 
flag. At the extreme southern part of the State Commodore Stockton captured San Diego 
and assumed command of the Pacific squadron. Fremont continued to press his campaign 
in the north and centre, and effecting a junction with Sloat and Stockton advanced upon 
and took the city of Los Angeles. Thus before the close of summer, 1846, California had 
been revolutionized and placed under the American flag. 

General Kearney with his hundred dragoons reached the Pacific coast in November, and 
joined his forces with those of Fremont and Stockton. About a month later the 
Mexicans, having discovered the meagreness of the forces before whom they had fled and 
yielde 1, returned to the field, and the Americans were obliged to confront them in a deci- 
sive conflict. On the 8th of January, 1847, the battle of San Gabriel was fought, in which 
the Mexicans were completely defeated and the results of the American conquest of the 
previous year confirmed. Thus by a mere handful of courageous adventurers marching 
from place to place, with scarcely the form of authority and with their lives in thei" hands, 
was the great empire of California wrested from the Mexican government. 

General Kearney on setting out for the Pacific coast had left behind Colonel Doniphan 

in command of the American forces at Santa Fe. That officer fretted for a season, and 

then with a body of seven hundred men set out across the country- from Santa Fe en rmite 

to Saltillo, a distance of more than eight hundred miles. On arriving at the Rio Grande, 

he encountered the enemy at Bracito on Christmas day, where he routed the Mexicans, and 

then crossing the river captured El Paso del Norte. Proceeding on his march he found 

himself after two months within twenty miles of Chihuahua. Here, on the banks of 

Sacramento creek, on the 28th of November, he met the Mexicans in great numbers, and 

inflicted upon them another disastrous defeat. He then captured Chihuahua, a city of forty 

thousand inhabitants! With but small losses Doniphan succeeded in reaching the division 

Df General Wool in safety. 

BOMBARDMENT OF VERA CRUZ. 

On his arrival in Mexico General Scott drew from the north down the Rio Grande a 
large part of the Army of Occupation. His object was the concentration under himself of 
a force sufficient for the conquest of the Mexican capital. By these movements General 
Taylor was weakened and left in an exposed condition. The Mexicans learned of the 
situation, and Santa Anna at the head of an armj- of twenty thousand men advanced on 
Taylor, whose entire forces did not number six thousand. Indeed, after garrisoning Saltillo 
and Monterey the general's effective force numbered only four thousand eight hundred 
men. With this small and resolute army, however, he marched out boldly to meet the 
overwhelming foe and chose his battle-ground at Buena Vista, four miles south of Saltillo, 
Here he planted himself and awaited the onset. 

The Mexican advance was from the direction of San L,uis Potosi. On the 2 2d of 
February the enemy in great force came pouring through the gorges and over the hills. 
Santa Anna at once demanded a surrender, but was met with defiance. A general battle 
began on the morning of the 23 d. At first the enemy made an unsuccessful attempt to out- 
tflank the American position. Taylor's centre was next attacked; but this movement was 



344 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



also repulsed. The Mexicans then threw their whole force on the American left, where the 
Indianians, acting under a mistaken order, gave way, and the army was for a while in 
peril. But the troops of Kentucky and Mississippi rallied to the breach, and the onset of 
the enemy was again repelled. The crisis of the battle was reached in the charge made by 
the Mexicans upon the American artillery under command of Captain Bragg; but the 
gimners stood at their batteries, and the Mexican lancers were scattered with volleys of 
grape-shot. A successful counter-charge was made by the American cavalry, in which the 
losses were severe. Against the tremendous odds the battle was fairly won. On the 
following night the Mexicans, having lost nearly two thousand men, made a precipitate 
retreat. The Americans also lost heavily, their killed, wounded and missing numbering 
seven hundred and forty-six. This was, however, the last of General Taylor's battles. He 
soon after left the field, and returned to the United States, where he was received with 
great enthusiasm. He was indeed, in the popular estimation, the hero of the war. 

With the opening of spring, 1847, General Scott found himself at the head of an army 
of twelve thousand men, ready for his campaign against the capital. On the 9th of March 
he landed to the .south of Vera Cruz and succeeded in investing that cit\-. Batteries were 
planted but eight hundred yards from tlie defences, while on the water side the American 
fleet began a boml)ardmeiit of the celebrated castle of San Juan d'Ulloa. This fortress had 
been erected by Spain in the early part of the seventeenth century', at a cost of four million 
dollars. For four days the place was beaten with shot and shell from the mortars of Com- 
modore Connor's fleet and from the land-batteries which Scott had planted on the shore. 
Life and property perished in the common ruin. The Americans were already preparing 
to carr>' Vera Cruz by storm, when the humbled authorities came forth and surrendered. 
Thus was opened a route for the American advance from the coast to the city of Mexico. 

MARCH OF THE VICTORIOUS ARMY. 



Tlie advance began on the 8th of April, 1847. 
General Twiggs set out on the road to Jalapa. 



The first division under command of 
General Scott followed with the main 
army. The advance was unopposed until 
the 1 2th of the month when the Americans 
came upon the enemy, fifteen thousand 
strong, who under command of Santa 
Anna had planted themselves in a strong 
position on the heights and rocky pass 
of Ccrro Gordo. At first view it appeared 
that the Mexicans could not be driven 
from their stronghold; but their expulsion 
was a necessity to further progress. Scott 
arranged his ann>- in three columns for 
an assault, which according to the rules 
and history of war promised only disaster 
and ruin; but the spirit of the anny was 
high and the General did not hesitate to 
take the risk. 

The attack was made on the morning of the 18th of April and before noonday every 
position of the Mexicans was carried by storm. They were hurled from their fortifications 
and driven off in a general rout. Nearly three thousand prisoners were captured, together 




BSCAPE OF SANTA ANNA AT CERRO GORDO. 



EPOCH OF NATIONALITY. 345 

with forty-three pieces of bronze artiller>', five thousand muskets and accoutrements enough 
to supply an army. The American loss in killed and wounded numbered four hundred 
and thirty-one; that of the Mexicans fully a thousand. Santa Anna barely escaped with 
his life by cutting loose one of the mules which drew his carriage and mounting its back, 
but in his haste left behind his private papers, his money chest and his wooden leg! 

The victorious Americans pressed onward to Jalapa. On the 22d of April the strong 
castle Perote, crowning the peak of the Cordilleras was taken without resistance. Here the 
Americans obtained another park of artillery and a vast amount of ammunition and stores. 
General Scott next turned to the south and captured the ancient and sacred city of Puebla, 
a place of eighty thousand inhabitants. It was a striking scene to witness the entrance 
through the gates of a mere handful of invaders two thousand miles from their homes. 

The 15th of May found the American army quartered in Puebla. Scott's forces 
had now been reduced by battle and other exigencies of the campaign to about five thou- 
sand men. He deemed it prudent, therefore, to pause until reinforcements could arrive 
from Vera Cruz. In the lull of active operations an attempt was made to negotiate with 
the enemy; but the foolish hardihood of the Mexicans prevented even the promise of suc- 
cess. Scott's reinforcements arrived, and with his numbers increased to eleven thousand 
men he set out on the 7th of August on his march to the city of Mexico. 

The route now led over the crest of the Cordilleras. The Americans had anticipated 
strong resistance and hard fighting in the mountain passes, but the advance was unopposed 
and the army sweeping over the heights looked down on the Valley of Mexico. Never 
before had a soldiery in a foreign land beheld a more striking landscape. Clear to the 
horizon spread the green fields, villages and lakes — a picture too beautiful to be torn with 
the enginery of war. 

The march was now unopposed as far as the town of Ayotla, within fifteen miles of 
the capital. The progress of the iVmerican army thus far had been along the great national 
road from Vera Cruz to Mexico. The Mexicans after their defeat at Cerro Gordo had 
gradually receded into the interior and established themselves about the capital. They had 
fortified the various positions along the national roads for miles out from the city. Per- 
ceiving the character of these defences, Scott wheeled to the south around Lake Chalco, 
and thence westward to San Augustine. By this detour the army was brought within ten 
miles of the capital. 

STORMING THE HEIGHTS OF CHURUBUSCO AND CHAPULTEPEC. 

From San Augustine the approaches to the city were by long causeways across marshes 
and the beds of bygone lakes. At the ends of these causeways were massive gates strongly 
defended. To the left of the line of march lay the almost inaccessible positions of Con- 
treras, San Antonio and Molino del Rey. To the front and beyond the marshes were the 
powerful bulwarks of two fortresses called, Churubusco and Chapultepec. These various 
outposts were occupied by Santa Anna with a force of fully thirty thousand Mexicans. The 
army of General Scott was not more than one-third as strong in numbers, but with this 
small force he pressed on to the attack. 

The first assaults on the Mexican positions were made on the 19th of August by the 
divisions of Generals Pillow and Twiggs. The movement was against Contreras. The 
Americans pressing on in the darkness, cut the communications between the fortress and 
Santa Anna's army. On the following night another column led by General Persifor F. 
Smith moved against Contreras, and with the early morning carried the place by storm. 
Six thousand Mexicans were driven in rout and confusion from the fortifications. The 



346 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



Americans numbered fewer than four thousand. This was the^rsl victory of the memor- 
able 2oth of August. 

On the same morning General Worth advanced on San Antonio and compelled the 
enemy to evacuate the place. This was the second victor)'. At the same hour General 
Pillow moved against one of the heights of Churubusco. Here the Mexicans had concen- 
trated in great force, and here they fought with considerable spirit; but the height was 
carried by storm and the garrison scattered like chaff. This was the t/iird triumph of the 
day. The division of General Twiggs stormed and held another height of Churubusco. 
This was the fourth victory. The fifth and la.st was achieved by Generals Shields and 
Pierce. The latter confronted Santa Anna, who was marching out of the city with rein- 
forcements, attacked him and drove him back with large losses. The whole of the Mexican 
arm\- was now withdrawn or driven into the fortifications of Chapultepec. 

On the morning of the 
2 1 St of August, the Mexican 
authorities being greatly 
alarmed sent out a deputation 
to negotiate with the victors; 
but the tenns suggested by 
the Mexicans were preposter- 
ous, and General Scott, who 
did not consider his army van- 
quished — as the Mexicans 
alleged — rejected the proposals 
with contempt. The weather, 
however, was exceedingly op- 
pressive, and the general rested 
his men until the yth of 
September. With the morn- 
ing of the 8th the advance was 
begun by General Worth, who 
moved against Molino del Rey 
and Casa de Mata, the western 
defences of Chapultepec. 
These places were defended 
by about fourteen thousand 
Mexicans. The Americans made the assault with their usual desperation, lost a fourth of 
their number, but carried both positions. The batteries were taken and turned on Chapul- 
tepec itself Five days afterwards that frowning citadel was assaulted by the Americans in 
force, and was carried by storm. By this victory an avenue was opened into the city. 
Through the San Cosme and Belen gates the conquering army swept resistlessly, and at 
nightfall the soldiers of the Union found themselves in the suburbs of Mexico. 

A CAMPAIGN OF UNEXAMPLED BRILLIANCY. 
Santa Anna and the goverunicul tkd from the cit>-. On their retreat they turned loose 
from the prisons two thousand convicts, with license to fire upon the American army. On 
the following morning before dawn a deputation came forth from the city to beg for mercy. 
Now were the messengers in earnest ; but General Scott, wearied with trifling, turned them 
away in disgust '■'Forward!'''' was the order. It rang along the American lines at sun- 




■'|';'^'j' ' I ^i !',■■'■' 



STORMING OF CHAPULTEPEC. 



EPOCH OF NATIONALITY. 347 

rise. The war-worn regiments swept into the beautiful streets of the ancient city, and at 
seven o'clock the flag of the United States was hoisted over the halls of the Montezumas. 
It was the triumphant ending of one of the most brilliant and striking campaigns of 
modern history. 

The American army as compared with the hosts of Mexico had been but a handful. 
The small force which left Vera Cruz on the march to the capital lost much by battle and 
disease. Many detachments had to be posted en route to hold the line of communications 
and for garrison duty in sundry places. After the battles of Churubusco and Chapultepec 
fewer than six thousand tnen were left to enter and hold the capital of Mexico. The cam- 
paign had never been seriously impeded. No foot of ground once taken from the Mexicans 
was yielded by false tactics or lost by battle. The army which accomplished this marvel 
of invasion through a densely peopled country', held by a proud race claiming to be the 
descendants of Cortez and the Spanish heroes of the sixteenth century — denounced at every 
step as a horde of barbarians out of the North — was in large part, at least in the final 
campaigns, an army of volunteers which had risen from the States of the Union and 
marched to Mexico under the Union flag. 

Santa Anna, after leaving his capital, turned about and treacherously attacked the 
American hospitals at Puebla. There about eighteen hundred American sick had been left 
in charge of Colonel Childs. For several days a gallant resistance was made by the 
enfeebled garrison, until General Joseph Lane, on his way to the capital, fell upon the 
besiegers and drove them away. Such was the closing stroke of the war — a contest in 
which the Americans had gained every single victory from first to last. 

The Mexican military power was left in a state of complete overthrow. Santa Anna, 
the President and commander-in-chief, was a fugitive. It was clear that the war was over, 
and that the American government might dictate its own terms of settlement. The 
Mexican Republic was completely prostrated, and must needs sue for peace. 

Negotiations were opened in the winter of 1847-48. American ambassadors met the 
Mexican Congress in session at Guadalupe Hidalgo, and on the 2d of February a treaty was 
concluded between the two nations. A prompt ratification followed on the part of the two 
governments, and on the 4th of July, 1848, President Polk issued a proclamation of peace. 

Great were the changes effected in the territorial boundaries of America and Mexico by 
the treaty of Guadalupe. Most important was the fixing of the dividing line between the 
two countries, which was established as follows: — the Rio Grande from its mouth to the 
southern limit of New Mexico ; thence westward along the southern and northward along 
the western boundary of that territory to the River Gila; thence down that River to its con- 
fluence with the Colorado; thence westward to the Pacific Ocean. Thus was the whole of 
New Mexico and upper California relinquished to the United States. Mexico guaranteed 
the free navigation of the Gulf of California and of the rivers of the boundar>'. The 
United States on their part agreed to surrender the places occupied by the American army 
in Mexico, to pay that country fifteen million dollars, and to assume all debts due from the 
Mexican government to American citizens, said debts not to exceed three million five 
hundred thousand dollars. It was thus, after the lapse of sixty-five years from the treaty 
of 1783, that the territory of the United States was extended in an unbroken belt from the 
Atlantic to the Pacific. 

BOUNDARY LINE BETWEEN BRITISH AMERICA AND THE UNITED STATES. 

So ended the Mexican war, and such were its results. On the north, meanwhile, the 
boundary line between the United States and the dominions of Great Britain had not been 



34S 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



definitely determined. The sudden extension ol our territories to the Pacitic turiiished a 
powerful incentive to the settlement of our northern limits, as well as the boundary on the 
southwest. The adversary in this case, however, was a party ver}- different from Mexico. 
The Oregon line had been in dispute since the early years of the centur}'. According to 
the treaty of 1818 the international boundary between the United States and the British 
dominions had been carried westward from the northwestern extremity of the Lake of the 
Woods to the crest of the Rocky Mountains, but from that point to the Pacific the two 
powers could not agree on a dividing line. 

The United States, from 1807 downwards, had continued to claim the parallel of fifty- 
four degrees and forty minutes, but this boundarj- Great Britain refused to accept. In 
August of 1827 a conference was held by agents of the two governments, and it was agreed 
that the vast region west of the Rocky Mountains lying between the forty-ninth parallel 
and the line of fifty-four degrees forty minutes should remain open indefinitely and impar- 
tially for the joint occupation of British and American citizens. Thus the difficulty was 
postponed for sixteen years, but thoughtful statesmen, both British and American, looked 
with alarm and an.xiety to the existence of so serious a dispute. 

In 1843 negotiations were formally reopened. The American Minister to Ei;gland 
proposed the parallel of fifty-four degrees and forty minutes, but this proposition was 
rejected as before. In the following year the British ambassador at Washington again 
claimed the forty-ninth parallel as the true boundan,-, but to this the American goveniment 
refused assent. The matter involved came to an issue on the 15th of June, 1846, when the 

question was definitely settled 
by a treaty. E\'ery point in 
the long-standing controversy 
was decided in favor of 
Great Britain. In the many 
diplomatical contentions be- 
tween that countr>' and our 
own the United States has 
always been able to main- 
tain its position with this 
single exception of the north- 
western bonndar)-. The 
complete surrender to the 
British government in this 
particular was little less than 
ignominious, and can be ac- 
SAN FRANCISCO IN 1849. couuted for only on the 

ground that the government of the United States, as it then was, was indifferent to the 
extension of her domains by the addition of free territor>-. At any rate the settlement 
'was such as to deprive our country' of a vast and valuable region inaccessible to slavery 
»nd extensive enough for ten Free States as large as Indiana.* 

DISCOVERY OF GOLD IN CALIFORNIA. 
Scarcely had the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo been signed when an event occurred 
*rhich produced a profound agitation throughout the civilized nations. A laborer employed 

• Such was the indignation of tlie opponents of tliis treaty, especially the leaders of the Whig party, that 
the political battle cry of " Fifty-four Forty, or Fight," became almost as popular a motto as " Free Trade and 
Sailors' Rights" had been in Jii war of 1812. 



>^^^^.: 




*.'»I.OV.». v\% 



EPOCH OF NATIONALITY. 



349 



by Captain Sutter to cut a mill-race on the American Fork of Sacramento River discovered 
some pieces of gold in the sand where he was digging. With further search other particles 
were found. The metal was tested and found to be genuine. The news spread as if borne 
on the wind. From all quarters adventurers came flocking. Explorers went out and 
returned with information of new discoveries here and there. For a time it seemed that 
there would be no end, no limit, to the quantity of gold which might be had for picking up. 
Straggling gold-hunters sometimes gathered in a few hours the value of five hundred 
dollars. 

The intelligence went flying through the States to the Atlantic Ocean, and then to the 
ends of the world. Men thousands of miles away were crazed with excitement and cupidity. 
Workshops were shut up, business 
houses abandoned, fertile fanns 
left tenantless, offices deserted. At 
this time the overland routes to 
California were scarcely known. 
Nevertheless thousands of eager 
adventurers started from the 
Western States on the long journey 
across the mountains and plains. 
Immigrants and miners poured in 
from all directions. Before the 
end of 1850 San Francisco had 
grown from a miserable Spanish 
village of huts to a city of fifteen 
thousand inhabitants. By the close 
of 1852 California had a population 
of more than a quarter of a million. 
The importance of the gold mines 
of California to the industries of 
the country and of the world has 
never been overestimated, nor is 
their richness yet exhausted. 

The year 1846 was marked by the passage of a Congressional act for the organizatioii 
of the Smithsonian Institution at Washington. Twenty-two years previous James Smith- 
son, * an eminent English chemist and philanthf opist, had died at Genoa, bequeathing on 
certain conditions a large sum of money to the United States. In the fall of 1838 Smith- 
son's nephew and only heir died without issue, and the properties of his uncle, amounting 
to five hundred and fifteen thousand dollars, were secured by an agent of the National 
Government. The funds were at first deposited in the mint. Smithson's will provided 
that his bequest should be used for the establishment at Washington city of "an institution 
for the increase and diffiision of knowledge among men." In order to carry out the designs- 
of the testator, a plan of organization was prepared by John Quincy Adams and adopted 
by Congress. The result has been the establishment in the United States of one of the 
most beneficent institutions known in the history of mankind. The "Smithsonian Con- 

* Until after his graduation at Oxford, in 1786, this remarkable man was known by the name oi James Lonit 
Made. Afterward, of his own accord, he chose the name of his reputed father, Hugh Smith, Duke of Northum- 
berland, but added the syllable son to indicate his descent. 




SUTTBR'S MILI,, WHERE MARSHALI, DISCOVERED GOLD IN 
CALIFORNIA. 



350 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UXITED STATES. 

tributions to Knowledge" already amount to more than thirty volumes quarto, and the 
future is destined to yield still richer results in widening the boundaries of human thought 
and increasing the happiness of men. 

The mortuary record of this epoch includes not a few illustrious names. First of these 
may be mentioned ex-President Andrew Jackson, who died at his home called the Hermi- 
tage, near Nashville, on the 8tli of June, 1845. The veteran warrior and statesman had 
reached the age of seventy-eight. On the 23d of February, 1848, ex-President John Quincy 
Adams died at the city of Washington. After his retirement from the Presidency he had 
been elected to represent his district in Congress. In that body he had displayed the most 
remarkable abilities and patriotism. There he acquired the well earned sobriquet of the 
" Old j\Ian Eloquent." At the time of his decease he was a member of the House of Rep- 
resentatives. He was struck with paralysis in the very seat from which he had so many 
times electrified the nation with his fer\'ent and cogent orator}'. 

In 1848 Wisconsin, last of the five great States formed from the territor>" northwest of 
the river Ohio, was admitted into the Union. The new commonwealth came with a popu- 
lation of two hundred and fifty thousand and an area of nearly fifty-four thousand square 
miles. In establishing the western boundary of the State, by an error of surveying, the 
St. Croix Ri\cr instead of the Mississippi was fixed as the line by which Wisconsin lost to 
Minnesota a considerable district belon(rin<r to her territorv. 

It was at this time that the new cabinet office known as the Department of the Interior 
was added to those already existing. At the foundation of the goveniment three depart- 
ments only had been organized. To these were added in course of time the offices of Post- 
master-General and Secretary of the Navy. The Attorney General of the United States 
had meanwhile come to be recognized as a men:bcr of the cabinet. The duties of the 
Department of the Interior were gathered by a division of labor from the Departments of 
State and the Treasury'. The new secretar\sliip was first filled by General Thomas Ewing, 

of Ohio. 

BIRTH OF THE FREE SOIL PARTY. 

As Polk's administration drew to a close three parties and three candidates appeared in 
the field of political conflict. General Lewis Cass, of Michigan, was nominated by the 
Democrats and General Zachary Taylor by the Whigs. The accession of vast and unoc- 
cupied territories by the successful war with Mexico had now developed in considerable 
vigor the anti-slavery sentiment among the American people. At first this sentiment was 
expressed in simple opposition to the extension of slaver)- into the hitherto unoci^upied 
national domains. As the representative of this sentiment, ex-President Martin Van Huren 
was brought forward as tlie candidate of the new Free Soil party. The circumstances wliich 
gave rise to this party, destined to play so important a part in the future histor)' of the 
coimtry, may well be recounted. 

The principles upon which the Free Soil party was based were aroused into acti"it>- by 
tlie treaty of the United States with Mexico and by the general results of the war. It was 
in 1846 that David Wilmot, of Pennsylvania, introduced into Congress a bill to prohibit 
llaTer>- in all the territories which might be secured by the treaty with Mexico. The anthot 
of the measure and many other statesmen and philanthropists had divined the bottom motive 
which was impelling the American conquest of Mexican territor>-. That motive was the 
desire for the acquisition of vast regions on the southwest for the spread and development 
of human slaver\'. By this means — by the creation of new States in that quarter of tlie 
horizon — the equipoise between slave-holding and anti-slave-liolding principles and powers 
might be maintained in the Senate of the United States. 



EPOCH OF NATIONALITY. 351 

The proposition of Wilinot was the key to all that ensued in opposition to the extension 
of slavery. The bill was defeated, but the advocates of the measure called the " Wilmot 
Proviso," formed themselves into a party, and in June of 1848 nominated Van Buren for 
the Presidency. The real contest, however, lay between the Whig and Democratic candi- 
dates. The position of the two old parties on the question of slavery had not as yet been, 
nor indeed could ever be, clearly defined. As a consequence the election was left to turn on 
the personal popularity of the two candidates and such minor factitious questions as the 
politicians were able to devise. The memory of General Taylor's recent victories in Mexico 
and the democratic features of his character prevailed, and he was elected by a large majority. 
As Vice-President, Millard Fillmore, of New York, was chosen. 

Zachar>' Taylor was by birth a Virginian; by breeding a Kentuckian; by profession a 
soldier; in politics a Whig. He was born on the 24th of September, 1784. His father 
was Colonel Richard Taylor, an officer of the Revolution. In 1785 the family removed to 
Kentucky which was at that time the western e.xtension of the Old Dominion. Young Taylor 
distinguished himself in the war of 181 2. He won honors in the northwest, particularly in 
the defence of Fort Harrison against the Indians. His services were conspicuous in the war 
with the Seminoles. His renown became great in our conflict with Mexico. In that 
struggle he outshined General Scott, and his popularity made easy his way to the Presidency. 
His reputation was military, his fame enviable, his character above reproach. His adminis- 
tration began with a renewal of the question about slavery in the Territories. California, 
the Eldorado of the West, was the origin of the dispute which now broke out with increased 
and increasing violence. 

SLAVERY QUESTION AGAIN AGITATEO. 

President Taylor in his first message to Congress expressed his sympathy with the Cali- 
fomians and advised them to frame a constitution preparatory to admission into the Union. 
The people of California caught eagerly at the suggestion and a convention of delegates 
was held at Monterey in September of 1 849, only eighteen months after the treaty of Guada- 
lupe. A constitution was loxxw^d. prohibiting slavery and was adopted with little opposition 
by the people. Peter H. Burnett was elected governor. Members of a General Assembly 
were chosen and on the 20th of December, 1849, the new government was organized at San 
Jose. A petition in the usual form was forwarded to Congress asking for the admission of 
California as a State. 

Now were the scenes attendant upon the admission of Missouri reenacted in the Con- 
gressional halls; but the parts were reversed. As in that great debate, the Representatives 
and Senators were sectionally divided. The proposition to admit California was supported 
by Northern Congressmen and opposed by those of the South. The ground of such oppo- 
sition was that the Missouri Compromise line in its extension to the Pacific crossed Cali- 
fornia, whereby a part of the proposed State was opened to the institution of slavery — this 
by an act of Congress which no Territorial Legislature could abrogate. The Southern Rep- 
resentatives for the most part claimed that California ought to be rejected until the restric- 
tion on slavery should be removed. The reply of the Northern Representatives was more 
moral, but less logical. They said that the arguments of the opponents of the bill foi 
admission could apply to only apart of California; that the Missouri Compromise had respect 
only to the Louisiana purchase and that California could not properly be regarded as a part 
of that purchase ; that the people of the proposed State had in any event framed their con- 
stitution to suit themselves. Such was the issue. The debates became violent, even to 
the extent of endangering the stability of the Union. 



352 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



It was at this juncture tiiat the illustrious Henrj- Clay appeared for the last time as a 
conspicuous figure in the councils of his country-. He came, as he had come before, in the 
character of a peacemaker. His known predilection for compromise was once more mani- 
fested in full force. In the spring of 1850, while the questions referred to were under hot 
discussion in Congress, Clay was appointed chairman of a committee of thirteen to whom 
^11 matters under discussion were referred. On the 9th of May, in that year, he reported 
to Congress the celebrated Omnibus Bill, covering most of the points in dispute. The pro- 
visions of this celebrated measure were as follows : First, the admission of California as a 
free State under the constitution already adopted : second, the formation of new States not 




exceeding four in number out of the territory of Te.xas, said States to permit or exclude 
slaverj' as the people thereof should determine ; third, the organization of territorial govern- 
ments for New Mexico and Utah without conditions on the question of slavery ; fourth, the 
«stablishment of the present boundary line between Texas and New Mexico and the pay- 
ment to Texas for surrendering New Mexico the sum of ten millions of dollars from the 
national treasury ; fifth, the enactment of a more vigorous law for the recover^' of fugitive 
slaves ; sixth, the abolition of the slave-trade in the District of Columbia. 

The report of the Omnibus Bill precipitated a new debate in Congress which seemed 
likely to be intenniuable. In the midst of the discussion President Taylor fell sick and 
died on the 9th day of July, 1850. Vice-President Fillmore at once took the oath of office 
and formed a new cabinet, with Daniel Webster as Secretary of State. 




CHAPTER XXIV. 
THE FILLMORE ADMINISTRATION, 

'ITH the beginning of Fillmore's administration we 
enter upon a peculiar period in American history. 
It was the epoch during which public opinion was 
gradually transformed from the support of the insti- 
tution of slavery- and the condition of society in 
which slaver^' had its ground and root to another 
and more progressive and enlightened phase of pro- 
gress and national morality. The period in question 
corresponded in time with the sixth decade of our 
century. It covered the administrations of Fillmore, 
Pierce and Buchanan. Its opening was marked by 
the passage of the Omnibus Bill. The discussion of 
this great and complex measure continued to the 
1 8th of September, when the last clause was 
adopted and the whole received the sanction of the President. 

This bill was sustained and carried through Congress by the eloquence and persistency 
of Henry Clay. After the adoption of the bill the excitement of the country rapidly 
abated and it seemed for the day that the distracting controversy was at an end. The 
peaceful condition, however, was only superficial. The deep-seated cause of the evil 
remained as before. The institution of slavery still existed and was destined in spite of 
all coniproniise still to disturb the harmony of American society until it should be cut from 
the body of our national life with the keen edge of the sword. For the present, however, 
there was quiet. The compromise acts of 1850 were in the nature of an anodyne. They 
were administered with good intent and were the last, perhaps the greatest of those tempo- 
rajy, pacific measures which originated in the patriotism and hopeful spirit of Henry Clay. 
Shortly afterwards he bade adieu to the Senate and sought at his beloved Ashland a brief 
rest from the arduous cares of public life. 

The Omnibus Bill proved to be a strictly political settlement. By it the moral convic- 
tions of few men were altered or amended. Public opinion took its own course as it 
always does despite the puny efforts of the men who sometimes vainly imagine that they 
make human historj'. In the North there appeared a general indefinite and growing hos- 
tility to slavery; in the south, a fixed and resolute purpose to defend and extend that 
Institution. 

To the Whig President whose party was in the ascendant in most of the Free States, 
'he measure was fatal. Although the members of his cabinet advised him to sign the 
• ill, the Whigs were at heart strongly opposed to more than one of its provisions. The 
Fugitive Slave Law grated harshly on the awakening conscience of many of the best men 
of the epoch. When the President signed the bill they turned coldly from him. Though 
Ids administration in other respects was one of the ablest, most enlightened and progressive 
■23 (353) 



354 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

known in our history, his dalliance with the institution of slavery', however necessary such 
a course might have appeared to be, was not forgiven. Two years afterwards in the Whig 
national convention of 1852, although the policy of the President, with the usual political 
hypocrisy was indorsed and approved by a vote of two hundred and twenty-seven against 
sixty, not twenty votes could be obtained in all the Northern States for the renominatioa 
of Fillmore! Thus do political parties punish their leaders for hesitating to espouse a 
principle which the parties themselves arc afraid to avow! 

FILIBUSTERS IN CUBA. 

To this period belongs the story of the attempt made by a few lawless American 
adventurers to gain possession of the island of Cuba. Rumors of Cuban discontent had 
reached the United States, and it was believed b)- the insurrectionists that the Cubans were 
ready to throw off the Spanish yoke and to appeal to the United States for annexation. In 
order to further a rebellion against Spain, General Narciso Lopez, a Spanish-.\merican 
soldier, fitted out an expedition in the Southern States and on the igtli of May, 1850, 
landed with a considerable body of followers at Cardenas, a port in Cuba. 

No uprising followed the adventure. Neither the Cubans nor the Spanish soldiers in 
the island joined Lopez's standard and he was obliged to return to Florida. Not satisfied 
with this experience, he renewed the attempt in the following year and invaded Cuba with 
four hundred and eighty men. The force, however, was attacked, defeated, captured and 
the ringleaders were taken to Havana, tried, condemned and executed. 

President Fillmore in his first annual message recommended to the consideration of 
Congress many important measures. Among these were the following: A cheap and 
uniform postage; the establishment, in connection with the Department of the Interior, of 
a Bureau of .-Vgriculture; liberal appropriations for the improvement of rivers and harbors; 
the building of a national asylum for disabled and destitute seamen; a permanent tariflf, 
with specific duties on imports, and discrimination in favor of American manufactures ; the 
opening of communication between the Mississippi and the Pacific coast; a settlement of 
the land-difficulties in California; an act for the retirement of supernumerary- officers of tht 
army and navy; and a board of commissioners to adjust the claims of private citizens 
against the government of the United States. Perhaps no other series of recommendations 
so statesmanlike and unpartisan has ever been made to the Congress of the United States. 
Only two of the recommendations, however — the asylum for sailors and the settlement of 
the land-claims in California — were carried into effiscL The Whigs of the President's party 
were in a minority in Congress, and the majority refused or neglected to approve these 
measures. 

A difficulty- now arose with Great Britain relative to the coast-fisheries of Newfoundland 
These belonged exclusively to England; but outside of a line drawn at the distance of a 
marine league from the shore American fishennen had certain rights and privileges. In 
course of time a contention sprang up between the fishermen of the two nationalities abcut 
tlie location of the line. Should the same be drawn from headland to headland, thus 
including bays and inlets? Or should the line be made to confonn to the irregularities of 
the coast? The latter construction was favorable to American interests; the fonner, to 
those of Great Britain. The quarrel grew so hot that both nations sent men-of-war into tht 
disputed waters. The difficulty extended from 1852 to 1854, and it frequently seemed that 
hostilities were imminent. Reason, however, triumphed over passion, and the difficulty 
was settled by negotiation in a manner favorable to the interests of the United States. 



EPOCH OF NATIONALITY. 355 

THE HUNGARIAN PATRIOT, AND NORTH PCLE EXPEDITIONS. 

In the summer of 1852, Louis Kossuth, the celebrated Huugarian patriot, made a tour 
of the United States, and was received with enthusiastic admiration. He came as the 
representative of the lost cause of Hungary in her struggle against Austria and Russia. He 
sought such aid as might be privately given to him bj' those favorable to Hungarian liberty. 
His mission in this respect was highly successful; the long-established policy of the United 
States forbade the government to interfere in behalf of Hungary, but the people in their 
private capacity gave to the cause of freedom in that land abundant contributions. 

To the same period in our history belong the first efforts of explorers to penetrate the 
regions about the North Pole. Systematic efforts were now made to enter and explore the 
Arctic ocean. As early as 1 845 Sir John Franklin, one of the bravest of English seamen, 
sailed on a voyage of discovery to the extreme north. He believed in the possibility of an 
open polar sea and of a passage through the same into the Pacific. Franklin made his way 
to a great distance in the direction of his delusive hopes, but the extent of his success was 
never ascertained. Years passed, and no tidings came from the daring sailor. It was only 
known that he had passed the country of the Esquimaux. 

Following in the wake of the Franklin expedition, others went, first of all in search of 
Franklin himself, and after that to explore the Arctic regions. Henry Grinnell, a wealthy 
merchant of New York, fitted out several vessels at his own expense, put them under com- 
mand of Lieutenant De Haven, and sent them to the north; but in vain. The govern- 
ment came to the rescue. In 1853 ^^ Arctic squadron was equipped, and the command 
given to Dr. Elisha Kent Kane; but this expedition also, though fruitful in scientific 
results, returned without discovering Franklin. 

The necrology of this epoch included, first of all, the great name of John C. Calhoun, 
of South Carolina. The distinguished Senator passed away on the 31st of March, 1850. 
His death was much lamented, especially in his own State, to whose interests and rights, as 
he understood them, he had devoted the energies of his life. His earnestness and zeal and 
powers of debate placed him in the front rank of American orators. As a statesman, how- 
ever, he was wedded to the destructive theory of State rights. The advocacy of this 
doctrine against the supremacy of Congress and the nation has placed him on a lower level 
than that of his great contemporaries Webster and Clay. At the age of si.xty-eight he fell 
trom his place like a scarred oak of the forest, never to rise again. Then followed the 
death of President Taylor, already mentioned. On the 28th of June, 1852, Henry Clay, 
having fought his last battle, sank to rest. On the 24th of the following October the illus- 
trious Daniel Webster died at his home at Marshfield, Massachusetts. The place of Secre- 
tary of State made vacant by his death was conferred on the scholarly Edward Everett. 

The ridiculous attempt of Lopez to start a revolution in Cuba, though the movement 
was totally disavowed by the United States and the officer at New Orleans dismissed who 
had permitted the expedition to escape from that port, created much excitement in Europe, 
The governments of Great Britain and France blustered, affecting to believe that the covert 
aim and purpose of the United States was to acquire Cuba by conquest — that our govern- 
ment was really behind the absurd fiasco of Lopez. Acting upon this theory the British 
and French Ministers at Washington proposed to the government to enter into a Tripartite 
Treaty, so-called, in which each of the contracting nations was to disclaim forever all inten- 
tion of gaining possession of Cuba. 

EVERETT'S REPLY TO ENGLAND. 

To this proposal Mr. Everett replied in one of the ablest papers ever issued from tne 
American Department of State. He informed Great Britain and France that the annexation 



356 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

of Cnba was foreig^ii to the policy of his government; that the project was regarded by the 
United States as a measure both hazardous and impolitic; that entire good faith would be 
kept with Spain and with all nations; but that the Federal government did not recognize in 
any European power the right to interfere in affairs purely American, and that any such 
interference with the principle and doctrine set forth by President Monroe would be 
reo-arded as an affront to the sovereigntv of the United States. Such were the last matters 
of imix)rtance connected with the administration of President Fillmore. It is proper to say 
that had his policies and measures been cordially approved and seconded by the political 
leaders who controlled Congress the administration would have passed into history as the 
most salutary since the beginning of the centun,-. 

It had now come to pass, however, that political parties existed for themselves, for 
their own perpetuation in power and for the purpose of using the government of the United 
States for the ulterior purposes of partisan advantage. The time arrived for another presi- 
dential election, and Franklin Pierce, of New Hampshire, was put forward as the candidate 
of the Democratic party. General Winfield Scott was selected as the standard-bearer of the 
Whigs. The political aspect was wholly ridiculous. The ouh- issue which could be found 
or invented seemed to be that involved in upholding the Compromise Acts of 1850. Both 
parties, strangely enough, instead of dividing on that issue, were for once agreed as to the 
wisdom and justice of the measure. Both the Whig and Democratic platforms stoutly 
reaffirmed the principles of the Omnibus Bill, by which the dissensions of the country had 
for the time been quieted. 

The philosophic eye may discover in this political unanimity of 1S52 the exact con- 
■ditions of a universal revolt against the principles so stoutly affirmed. Certain it is that 
when the two political parties in any modern nation agree to maintain a given theory- and 
fact that theory and fact are destined to speedy overthrow. The greater the unanimity 
the more certain the revolution. It was so in the present instance. Although the Whigs 
and Democrats agreed as to the righteousness of the Omnibus Bill, a third party aro.se, 
whose members, whether Whigs or Democrats, doubted and denied the wisdom of the com- 
promise of 1850, and declared that all the Territories of the United States ought to be free, 
John P. Hale, of New Hampshire, was put forward as the candidate of this Free Soil party, 
and the largeness of his vote showed unmistakably the approach of the coming storm. 
Pierce, however, was elected by a handsome majority, with William R. King, of Alabama, 
for Vice-President. 

The new chief executive was a native of New Hampshire, a graduate of Bowdoin Col- 
lege, a lawyer by profession, a politician, a general of the Mexican war, a statesman of 
considerable ability. Mr. King, the Vice-President, had for a long time represented 
Alabama in the Senate of the United States, but his health was broken and he was sojourn- 
ing in Cuba at the time of the inauguration. There he received the oath of office and 
hopes were entertained of his recovery; but he grew more feeble and presently returned to 
Ws own State where he expired on the iSth of April, 1853. At the head of the new cabi- 
net was placed William L. Marc\-, of New York, as Secretary of vState. 

PACIFIC RAILWAY PROJECT, AND OPENING THE PORTS OF JAPAN. 

Now it was that the question of the Pacific Railway was first agitated. As early as th* 
snmmer of 1853 a corps of engineers was sent out by the goveniment to explore a suitable 
route. At first the enterprise was regarded as visionary-, but the intelligent minority clearly 
discerned the feasibility and future success of the enterprise. It was at this time that the 




EPOCH OF NATIONALITY. 357 

disputed boundary between New Mexico and the Mexican province of Chihuahua was satis- 
factorily settled. The maps on which the former treaties with Mexico had been based were 
lound to be erroneous. Santa Anna, wlio had again become President of the Mexican Repub- 
lic, attempted to take advantage of the error and sent an army to occupy the territory between 
the true and the false boundar>-. This action was resisted by New Mexico and the national 
authorities and for a time a second war with the Mexican Republic seemed imminent. The 
difficulty, however, was adjusted by the purchase of the doubtful claim of New Mexico. 
This transaction, known as the Gadsden Purchase, led to the organization of the new Terri- 
tory of Arizona. 

The year 1853 was memorable for the opening of intercourse between the United States' 
and the Empire of Japan. Hitherto the Oriental policy had prevailed with the Japanese 
government and the ports of the country had been closed against the vessels of Christian 
nations. In order to remove this foolish and injurious restriction Commodore Perry, the 
son of Oliver H. Perrv-, of the war of 1S12, sailed with his squadron into the Bay of Yeddo. 
Being warned to depart he explained to the Japanese officers the desire of the United States 
to enter into a commercial treaty with the Emperor. There was much delay and hesitancy 
on the part of the Japanese government, but consent was at length obtained and Commodore 
Perry was admitted to an interview with the Emperor. On the 14th of July, 1853, the 
American officer presented to the monarch a letter from the President of the United States. 
For a while the old distrust prevailed; but in the spring of 1854 a treaty was effected by the 
tenns of which the privileges of commerce were conceded to American vessels and two ports 
of entry were designated for their use. 

While these events were happening in the Orient the second World's Fair was opened 
in the Cr5'stal Palace at New York City. The sixth decade marked the beginning of the 
era of international expositions. The American Crystal Palace was a marvel in architec- 
ture, being built exchisively of iron and glass. Thousands of specimens of the arts and 
manufactures of all civilized nations were put on exhibition within the spacious building. 
The enterprise and inventive genius of the American people were quickened into new life 
by the display, and an impetus was given to artistic and manufacturing industries. It 
cannot be doubted that international expositions are among the happiest fruits of an enlight- 
ened age. 

WALKER'S EXPEDITrON TO NICARAGUA. 

The spirit of filibustering now reappeared in General William Walker and his invasion 
of Central America. This audacious adventurer undertook his enterprise in 1853. 
He made California his base of operations, and first condiicted a band of lawless men 
against La Paz, in old California. In the following j'ear he led an expedition into the 
State of Sonora, where he was defeated and taken prisoner. He was subjected to a 
trial at San Francisco, but was acquitted. Soon afterwards he raised another company 
and proceeded to Central America. There he was joined by a regiment of insurgents, with 
whose aid he fought and gained a battle at Rivas, on the 29th of June, 1855. In another 
conflict at Virgin Bay he was again victorious. He rose to influence, gained the upper 
hand and was presently elected President of Nicaragua. 

Then came a change in his fortunes. A counter rebellion broke out, and the enemies 
of Walker were encouraged and assisted by the Vanderbilt Steamship Company of the 
United States. He was soon overthrown, and on May ist, 1857, was again made prisoner. 
Securing his release he returned to New Orleans and organized a third force, made up of 
men who had everything to gain and nothing to lose. Returning to Nicaragua, fortune 



358 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

went against liini, and he was obliged to surrender to Commodore Paulding of the United 
States navy. Taken to New York, he managed to regain his liberty, gathered anotlier 
company about him, and in June of i860 reached Central America for the third time. 
With his anny he made a descent on Truxilo, Honduras ; but the President of the State, 
assisted by a British man-of-war, overpowered and captured nearly the whole band. On 
the 3d of September Walker was brought to trial and condemned to be shot The courage 
with which he met his fate has half redeemed his forfeited fame, and left aftertimes in 
loubt whether he shall be called fanatic or hero.* 

At this period occurred the celebrated international episode known as the Martin Koszta 
affair. Martin Koszta had been a leader in the Hungarian rebellion of 1849. When that 
insurrection was suppressed he fled to Turkey, whence he was demanded as a traitor by the 
Austrian government. Turkey refused to render up the fugitive, but agreed that he might 
go for refuge to some foreign land never to return. Koszta chose the United States, came 
hither and took out his papers of intention, but not papers of completed naturalization. In 
1854, contrary to his former promise, he returned to Smyrna, where he received a passport 
from the American consul and went ashore. 

The Austrian consul at Smyrna, having no power to arrest Koszta on shore, instigated 
some bandits to seize him and throw him into the waters of the bay ; there a boat which 
lay in wait picked him up and put him on board an Austrian frigate. The American 
officials immediately demanded the release of Koszta, and the captain of the sloop St. Louis 
loaded his guns, pointed them at the Austrian vessel, and was about to make quick work, 
when it was agreed by all parties that the prisoner should be put in charge of the French 
govennnent until his nationality should be authoritatively decided. Then began a long and 
complicated international correspondence, in which the American Secretary- of State, 
William L. Marcy, prevailed in argument, and Koszta was remanded to the United States. 
Of so much importance is the life of one man when it involves the great question of human 
rights. 

QUESTION OF ANNEXING CUBA. 

After the descent of Lopez upon Cuba the relations of the United States and Spain 
were strained for a season. President Pierce entertained the belief that on account of the 
financial embarrassments of the Spanish government Cuba might now be peaceably pur- 
chased and annexed to the United States. The purpose of gaining Cuba had been covertly 
entertained by several Democratic Presidents — this, with the ulterior design of extending 
the slave territor\' of the United States. The desire to purchase Cuba was one of those 
devices by which it was hoped to keep up the equipoise of the South and of the system of 
slave labor on the one side, as against the growing North and the system of free labor on 
the other. 

The pending question was submitted to a commission having for its chainnan James 
Buchanan, of Pennsylvania. A convention of ambassadors from the various goveniments 
interested was held at Ostend and an important instrument was there drawn up, chiefly by 
IMr. Buchanan, known as the Ostend manifesto. The document was devoted for the most 
part to a statement of the arguments in favor of the annexation of Cuba to the United 
States by purchase. iNothing, however, of practical importance resulted from the confer- 
ence or the manifesto. The logic of events was against the purchase and the question was 
allowed to lapse. 

* The poet Joaquin Miller, claiming to have been a member of Walker's band in the first invasion of Central 
America, has affectionately embalmed the memory of his brave leader in a poem, " With Walker in Nicaragua." 
which might well conciliate the good opinion of posterity' 



EPOCH OF NATIONALITY. 359 

i\ow had come, under the forward movement of civilization, the time and necessity for 
the territorial organization of the great domains lying west of Minnesota, Iowa and Mis- 
souri. Already into those vast regions the tides of emigration were pouring and a govern- 
ment of some kind was necessary for the protection of the ever-increasing frontier com- 
munities. One must needs see in the retrospect the inevitable renewal under these condi- 
tions of the slavery question as the most important issue which was likely to aflFect the crea- 
tion of new Territories and new States. 

It was in January of 1854 that the real agitation began. In that year Senator Stephen 
A. Douglas, of Illinois, introduced into the Senate of the United States a proposition to 
organize the Territories of Kansas and Nebraska. In the bill reported for this purpose the 
author inserted a clause providing that the people of the two Territories in forming their 
constitutions should decide for t/iemselves whether the new States should be free or slave- 
holding. Should this clause obtain, it would constitute a virtual repeal of the Missouri 
Compromise, for both of the new Territories lay north of the parallel of thirty-six degrees 
and thirty minutes, above which line it had been provided in the Missouri compact that 
slavery or involuntary- servitude should not exist. 

The ulterior motive of Senator Douglas in thus opening anew a question which had 
been settled with so great difficulty thirty-three years before cannot well be ascertained. 
The friends of that statesman have claimed that his action was based on the theory that all 
the Territories of the Union should, as an abstract and general proposition, be left entirely 
free to decide their domestic institutions for themselves. The opponents of Douglas held 
that his object was covertly to open in this manner the vast domain of Kansas and 
Nebraska to the institution of slavery, and by this policy he hoped to secure the everlast- 
ing gratitude of the South. To that section it was alleged that he looked in his aspirations 
for the Presidency. However this may be, the result of his measure in the Senate was inevi- 
table. The old settlement of the slavery question was suddenly undone. 

EFFORTS TO EXTEND SLAVERY LEAD TO BORDER WARFARE. 

With the introduction of the so-called Kansas-Nebraska Bill violent debates began in 
Congress and continued from January to May of 1854. All the bitter sectional antagonisms 
of the past were aroused in full force. It was as though a literal Pandora's Box had been 
opened in the halls of government. The bill was violently opposed by a majority of the 
Northern and Eastern representatives; but the minority from the North and East, combin- 
ing with the Congressmen of the South, enabled Douglas to carry his measure through 
Cf "gress, and in May the bill was passed and received the sanction of the President. 

With this act the struggle which had been waged in Congress had been transferred to 
Kansas. Should the new State admit slavery or exclude it ? The decision of the question 
now lay with the people or so-called squatters of the Territory. Douglas's theory was 
iflamed Squatter Sovereignt}', and the opposite view National Sovereignty. Free-State 
men and Slave-State men both made a rush for the Territory'. Both parties were backed 
by strong factions throughout the Union. Kansas was soon filled with an agitated mass 
of people thousands of whom had been sent thither to vote. The Free-State partisans 
gained the advantage in immigration; but this was counterbalanced by the proximity of 
the great slave State of Missouri. With only a modest river between her western borders 
and the plains of Kansas she might easily discharge into the Territory a large part of 
her floating population, to be remanded whenever the purpose for which it was sent acrosg 
the boundary had been subserved. 



36o PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

The Territorial election of November, 1854, resulted in the choice of a pro-slavery 
delegate to Congress. In the general election of the following year, the same party was 
triumphant. A pro-slavery State legislature chosen at this time assembled at the towi of 
Lecompton, organized a government and framed a constitution permitting slaver}'. The 
Free-Soil party, however, declared the general election invalid on account of the large 
imported vote from JMissouri and other frauds. A Free-State convention was held at Topeka, 
and a constitution adopted excluding slavery. The rival governments were organized, and 
civil war broke out between the two factions. 

For about a year (1855-56) the Territory' was the scene of turmoil and violence. In 
September, 1855, the President appointed John W. Geary, of Pennsylvania, militan,- gov- 
ernor of Kansas, with full powers to restore order and punish lawlessness. On his arrival, 
warlike demonstrations ceased, and the hostile parties were dispersed. By this time, how- 
ever, the agitation having its centre in the afflicted Territory spread to all parts of the 
Union. Out of this complex and stonny condition of affairs the political issues were 
evolved for the presidential election of 1856. 

BITTER CAMPAIGN OF 1856. 

James Buchanan, of Pennsylvania, appeared as the candidate of the Democratic part}'. 
As for the Whig part}-, that was in a state of dissolution. The greater part had espoused 
the cause of Free Kansas. Clearly and distinctly these partisans put forward their doctrine 
of unequivocal opposition to slavery in the Territories of the United States. They nomi- 
nated as the candidate of the new People's, or Republican part}-, John Cliarles Fremont, of 
California, known popularly as the " Pathfinder of the Rockies. " ^Meanwhile a considerable 
part of the Wliigs and many Democrats, anxious to avoid or ignore the question of slaver}' 
formed themselves into a secret organization which became a political party under the name 
of the Know-Nothings.* The Democratic doctrine was the support of the principles of the 
Kansas-Nebraska Bill, or what was known as Squatter or Popular Sovereignty. The 
Republicans boldly announced opposition to slavery in the Territories as their fundamental 
doctrine. The Know-Nothing party set up its banner inscribed with opposition to foreign 
influence in the United States. The latter movement at one time became fonnidable, and 
several of the Northern States were cleaily carried by the Know-Nothings in the elections of 
1854-55. As the candidate of this party, Millard Fillmore, of New York, was nominated 
for the Presidency. The election followed, and a large majority decided in favor of 
Buchanan and the Democratic party. The choice for Vice- Presidency fell on John C. 
Breckinridge, of Kentucky. Fremont, however, obtained a surprisingly large vote in the 
Northern States, and but for the strong diversion made by the Know-Nothings his election 
had been probable. 

James Buchanan was a native of Pennsylvania, born on the 13th of April, 1791. He 
•was the last of American Presidents whose birth dated back to the eighteenth century. He 
was educated for the law. In his fortieth year he had risen to such reputation as to be 
appointed by President Jackson minister to St. Petersburg. Afterwards he was a Senator 
of the United States, and from that position was made Secretar}- of State under Polk. In 
1853 he was appointed minister to Great Britain, and held that position at the time of his 
nomination to the Presidency. On his accession to office he gave the position of Secretary 
of State to General Lewis Cass, of ^Michigan. 

* The origin of this apparently absurd name is found in a part of the pledge which the members took on 
Initiation. They promised to /know nothing but the Union, and to know nothing but " America for Americans." 



EPOCH OF NATIONALITY. 361 

THE DRED SCOTT DECISION. 

It was in March of 1857, immediately after the beginning of the new administration, 
that the celebrated Dred Scott Decision was rendered by the Supreme Court of the United 
States. Dred Scott was a negro who had been held as a slave by a certain Dr. Emerson, 
of Missouri. In course of time Emerson removed first to Rock Island, Illinois, and after- 
wards to Fort Snelling, Minnesota, taking Scott with him as a slave. At the latter place 
Scott and a negro woman who had been bought by Emerson were married. Two children 
were born of the marriage and then the whole family were taken back to St. Louis and sold 
as slaves. Dred Scott hereupon brought suit for his freedom. 

The cause was tried successively in the Circuit and Supreme Courts of Missouri, and 
in May of 1854 was appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States. There the matter 
lay for about three years. After the Democratic triumph of 1856, however, and the acces- 
sion of Buchanan a decision was at once rendered. Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, speak- 
ing for the court, decided that negroes, whether free or slave, wei'e not citizens of the United 
States and that they could not become such by any process known to the Constitution; that 
under the laws of the United States a negro could neither sue nor be sued and that therefore 
the court had no jurisdiction of Dred Scott's cause; that the slave was to be regarded simply 
as a personal chattel; that the Constitution gave to the slave-holders the rights of removing 
to or through any State or Territory with his slaves and of returning at his will with them 
to a State where slavery was recognized by law; and that therefore the Missouri Compro- 
mise of 1820, as well as the compromise measures of 1850, was unconstitutional and void. 

In these extraordinary opinions — as sound legally as they were profoundly immoral — 
six associate justices of the Supreme Bench — Wayne, Nelson, Grier, Daniel, Campbell and 
Catron — concurred, while two associates — McLean and Curtis — dissented. The decision 
gave great satisfaction to the ultra-slave-holding sentiments of the South and chimed in 
agreeably with the doctrine of squatter sovereignty. In the North, however, great excite- 
ment was produced and thousands of indignant comments and much bitter opposition were 
provoked by the dictum of the court. 

One of the provisions of the Omnibus Bill of 1850 related to the organization of Utah 
Territory. That remote, transmontane region was occupied almost exclusively by the Mor- 
mons or Latter-Day Saints. By their exile from Illinois and Missouri they had virtually 
escaped from the jurisdiction of the United States and had planted themselves in what they 
supposed to be an inaccessible country. At length an attempt was made to extend the 
American judicial system over the Territory. Thus far Brigham Young, the Mormon 
Prophet, had as the head of the theocracy governed as he would. The community of 
Mormons was organized on a plan ver>' different from that existing in other Territories and 
many usages, especially polygamy, had grown up in Utah which were deemed repugnant to 
the laws of the United States. 

In 1857 a Federal judge was sent to preside in the Territory. He was resisted, insulted 
and driven violently from the seat of justice. His associate officials were in like manner 
expelled from the Territor>^ Utah became a scene of terror for all officers of the United 
States and so-called "Gentiles." The Mormons, however, claimed in justification of their 
course that the officers who had been sent out to govern them were of so low a character 
as to command no respect. 

The government deemed this excuse insufficient. Alfred Cumming, Superintendent 
of Indian Affairs on the upper Missouri, was sent to Utah to supersede Brigham Young in 
authority. Delana R. Eckels, of Indiana, was appointed Chief Justice of the Territory, and 



362 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

an army of twenty-five hundred men was sent to Utah to put down lawlessness by force. 
The Mormons were charged with the perpetration of many crimes, committed generally 
by an organized band called Danites who were known as the Avenging Angels of the 
Church. These were accused of murdering a large band of emigrants at a place in southern 
Utah called Mountain Meadows. The massacre was perpetrated under the leadership of 
John D. Lee, who suffered the supreme penalty of the law for his crime. 

JOHNSTON'S CAMPArCN AGAINST THE MORMONS. 

Notwithstanding the show of force that was made b>- the militar)-, Young and the 
Monnon elders were little disposed to yield. The antagonism of the people of the Ter- 
ritor\- was aroused to the last pitch. They remembered what their fathers had suffered by 
banishment and persecution, and could but regard this extension of government authority 
over them as a renewal and aggravation of the former injustice and cnielties to which 
they had been subjected. The American army was denounced as a horde of barbarians. 
In September of 1867 the national forces reached the Territory, and on the 6th of October 
a band of Mormon rangers attacked and destroyed most of the supply trains of the army. 
Winter came on, and the Federal forces, under command of Albert Sidney Johnston, were 
obliged to find quarters on Black's Fork, near Fort Bridges. 

Meanwhile Thomas L. Kane, of Pennsylvania, was sent out b\' the President with 
conciliatory letters to the Mormon authorities. Kane went around by way of California, 
reached Utah in the spring of 1858, and soon succeeded in bringing about an understand- 
ing between Governor Cumming and the Mormons. Next came Governor Powell, of Ken- 
tucky, and Major McCulloch, of Texas, bringing from the President a proclamation of 
pardon to all who would submit to the national authority. The Mormons generally 
accepted the overtures. The army of the United States marched to Salt Lake City, but 
was quartered at Camp Floyd, forty miles distant. Here the Federal forces remained 
until order was restored, and in May of i860, were withdrawn from the Territon.-. 

The year 1858 became memorable in the histor\- of our countn,-, and indeed of all 
nations, for the laying of the first telegraphic cable across the Atlantic Ocean. On the 
5th of August in this year the great enterprise was successfully completed. The work was 
projected and brought to an auspicious end most largely by the energy- and genius of 
Cyrus W. Field, a wealthy merchant of New York City. 

In this year the Territory' of Minnesota was organized and admitted into the Union. 
The area of the new State was a little more than eighty-one thousand square miles, and its 
population about a hundred and fifty thousand. In 1859 Oregon, the thirty-third member 
of the Union and second of the Pacific States, was admitted. The new commonwealth 
brought a population of forty-eight thousand and an area of eighty thousand square miles. 
It was on the 4th of March, in this year, that General Sam Houston, of Texas, bade adieu 
to the Senate of the United States and re'^ired to private life. His career had been one of 
the most remarkable in American histor)'. His genius was undoubted and his character of 
so resolute a frame that in the last year= of his life the secession storm that prevailed in 
Te.xas could not sweep him from his feet or bear him away from his devotion to the Union. 

The year 1859 felt a shadow from the death of the illustrious Washington Ir\-ing He 
had gained a proud rank in American letters. The powers of his genius had been devoted 
to the creation for his native land of a literary rank among the nations. His name had 
become a household word in Europe. He it was, first of all, who succeeded in wringing 
from the prescriptive reviews of England and Scotland an acknowledgment of the power 
and t-rjginality of American genius. 



BOOK FOURTH 



Epoch of War and Greatness. 



CHAPTER XXV. 
ANTECEDENTS OF THE CIVIL WAR. 



HERE approach the great tragedy of American history. 
We find ourselves in the dawn of that epoch which 
was destined to bring insurrection, blood and devas- 
tation in its train. Let us, in the first place, note 
with clearness some of the antecedents and causes 
which led to the tremendous conflict now impending 
over the American Republic. 

It was believed by the pro-slavery party and the 
Democratic administration, extending from 1856 to 
i860, that the Dred Scott decision — puny, paper 
manifesto as it was — would allay the troubled waters 
and produce a perpetual calm. On the contrary that 
judicial edict came as a torch among combustibles. 
Some of the Free States proceeded to pass what were 
called Personal Liberty Bills, the object of which was to thwart the operation of the Fugitive 
Slave Law. A deep seated and unquenchable animosity towards the slavery propagandists 
was kindled throughout the North and many of the greatest and most enlightened Ameri- 
cans set themselves in relentless hostility, not only to the extension of slavery, but to the 
institution itself 

Next came the John Brown insurrection of 1859. Old John Brown, of Osawatomie, 
deliberately devised a scheme for a servile war and revolution throughout the South. He 
had been one of the leaders of the Free-State militia in the border war in Kansas. He was 
an enthusiast, fearless, persistent, determined to do or to die, a religious fanatic who took 
no counsel of danger or defeat. With a party of twenty-one men like himself, but not his 
equals, he made a sudden descent out of Pennsylvania on the United States arsenal at Har- 
per's Ferry, captured the place and held his ground for nearly two days. The militia of 
Virginia and then the national troops were called out to suppress the revolt. Thirteen of 
Brown's men were killed. Two made their escape and the rest were captured. The leader 
and his six companions were given over to the authorities of Virginia, tried, condemned 
and hanged. The event was one which to the present day excites the keenest interest and 

(363) 




''*''^^' 




i^/y^ccA^. 



£ri^ 



(364) 



EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 



365 



liveliest controversy. Nor may it be easil\- decided whether an adventurer — supposing him- 
self under tlie direction of the Higher Law— may in such a manner attack the abuses of a 
State and whether, if he do, he strikes the blow in the character of a fool and madman or as 
the hero and protagonist of a new era. 

Ever and anon the controversy in Kansas broke out with added heat. There the Free- 
Soil party gradually gained the upper hand. It became evident that slavery would be 

finally interdicted in the 
new State. But a questica 
had now been opened 
between the North and 
the South which was not 
to close except by the 
workings of the greatest 
tragedy of modern times. 
Among the Northern 
peojjle anti-slavery senti- 
ments spread and became 
intense. It became a con- 
viction that the institution 
of slavery must now be 
curbed with a strong hand. 
In the minds of the 
younger people that in- 
stitution began to have 
the feature of a demon. 
In the South, on the other hand, the opposing cotiviction 
grew that it was the purpose and scheme of the Northern 
people, first to gain control of the national government 
and then to attack them and their peculiar domestic 
institutions. 
THE NOMINATING CONVENTIONS OF i860. 
Such was the fretful and alarming condition of affairs when the administration of 
Buchanan drew to a close. The nineteenth Presidential election was at hand. The Free- 
Soil party had now become powerfully organic under the name Republican. A great con- 
vention of the delegates of that party was held in Chicago and Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois, 
was nominated for the Presidency. The platfonn of principles declared opposition to the 
extension of slavery as the one vital issue. In April of i860 the Democratic convention 
assembled a': Charleston, South Carolina, but no sooner had the body convened than its 
utter distraction of counsels was apparent. The delegates were divided on the slavery ques- 
tion, and after much debating and wrangling the party was disrupted. The delegates from 
the South, unable to obtain a distinct endorsement of their views in the platfonn of the 
party, and seeing that the Northern wing was determined to nominate Senator Douglas, 
withdrew from the convention. The remainder, including most of the delegates from the 
North, continued in session, balloted for awhile for a candidate, and on the 3d of May 
adjourned to meet at a later date in Baltimore. 

The second convention was held on the i8th of June, according to appointment. The 
Northern delegates reassembled and chose Stephen A. Douglas as their standard-bearer. 




WARFARE ON THE KANSAS BORDER. 



366 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



The seceding Southern delegates adjourned first to Richmond, and afterwards to Baltimore, 
where they met on the 28th of June and nominated John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky. 
The American, or Know-Nothing party, which had now lost much of its distinctive char- 
acter, took the name of Constitutional Unionists, met in convention, and chose John Bell, 
of Tennessee, as its candidate for the Presidency. Thus were four political standards raised 
in the field, and the excitement went through the country' like a storm. 

In the political conflict that ensued the Republicans gained much by their compact- 
ness and the distinctness of their utterances on the question of slaver}-. Most of the old 




JDH.N hKoWN S loRT AND HARPER'S niKRV. 

Abolitionists cast in their fortunes with the Republican party and the support of Lincoln. 
The result was the triumphant election of that remarkable man by the votes of nearly all 
the Northern States. The votes of the Southern States were for the most part given to 
Breckinridge. The States of Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee cast their thirty-nine 
ballots for Bell. Douglas received a large popular but small electoral support. His 
adherents were scattered through all the States, without concentration in any. Thus after 
controlling the destinies of the republic for sixty years, with only temporary breaks in 1840 
and 1848, the Democratic party was overthrown and driven from the field. 

But what was the result? The Southern leaders had declared already that the election 
of Lincoln by the votes of the Northern States would be just cause for a dissolution of the 
Union. Threats to secede had been freely indulged in the Southern States, but in the 



EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 



367 



North such expressions were regarded as mere political bravado, made up of Found and 
fury, signifying nothing. It was believed that no actual purpose of rebellion existed among 
the people of the South. The threats that were indulged in rather instigated than deterred 

the Republicans of the populous North 







from voting according to their political 
convictions. They crowded to the polls 
and their favorite was elected by a plurality 
of the electoral votes. 

For the time, however, the govern- 
ment remained under control of the Douglas 
Democracy. A majority of the members 
of the cabinet and a large number of Senators 
^^x-^ and Representatives belonged to the Breck- 
inridge party. These had imbibed from 
their proslavery education and local attach- 
ments all the fire-eating proclivities of the 
extreme South. Such members of Congress 
'^ began openly to advocate in the Senate and 
House of Representatives the doctrine of 
secession as a legitimate remedy for the 
JOHN BROWN BESIEGED AT HARPER'S FERRY. glection of Llncolu. With thc close of the 

current administration a climax was reached. With the ensuing spring all the depart- 
ments of the government were to pass into the hands of the Republican party. The times 
were full of passion, animosity and rashness. 

SECESSION OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 

At this juncture the Southern leaders perceived that as affairs then stood the dis- 
memberment of the Union was possible, but that with the inauguration of Lincoln and the 
establishment of Republican rule such a movement would probably be thwarted and become 
an impossibility. Great was the embarrassment of the President He was not himself a 
disunionist. In argument he denied the right of a State to secede; but at the same time 
he declared himself not armed with Constitutional power to prevent by force the secession 
of a sovereign State. His attitude thus favored the plans of the secession party. 
Buchanan's theory of government was sufficient of itself to paralyze the remaining energies 
of the executive and to make him helpless in the presence of the great emergency. It was 
w'th wisdom and craft, therefore, on the part of the Southern leaders that the interval 
between the November election of i860 and the inauguration of L,incoln was seized as the 
opportune moment for the dissolution of the Union. 

The event showed that the train had already been laid for the impending catastrophe. 
The actual work of secession broke out in South Carolina. The disunion proclivities of 
that State, after a slumber of thirty years, burst suddenly forth in flame and fire. On tht 
lyth of December, i860, a convention of delegates chosen by the people of South Carolina 
met at Charleston, and after three days of fiery discussion passed a resolution that the union 
hitherto existing between South Carolina and the other States under the name of the United 
States of America was dissolved. It was a step of fearful importance, portending war and 
universal discord. 

The action of South Carolina was contagious. Disunion spread like an insanity among 



36S 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 




the Southern people. Within a short time the cottou-g-rowing States had given themselves 

wholly to the cause of dissolution. By the 1st of Februar}-, 1861, six other States — 

Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, 

Louisiana and Texas — had passed ordi- 
nances of secession. Nearly all the 

Senators and Representatives of those 

States resigned their seats in Congress, 

returucd to the South, and threw their 

influence with the disunion cause. 

Little opposition was manifested to 

the movement. Those who opposed dis- 
union did not attend the State conventions, 

and the voice of opposition was drowned 

in the universal clamor. The secession 

leaders rushed together, carrj-ing with them 

the enthusiastic support of the planters and 

the young politicians of the South. In 

some instances a considerable minority vote 

was cast against disunion. A few speakers 

attempted, but without success, to stem 

•the secession tide. The course of Alexander 

H. Stephens, afterwards Vice-President of 

the Confederate States, was peculiar. In 

the Georgia convention he openly and 

powerfully opposed the secession of his State. At the same time he defended the theory 

of secession, advocated State sovereignty, declared his purpose to abide by the decision of 

Georgia, but at the same time spoke against 
the secession ordinance on the ground that 
the measure was impolitic, unwise and likely 
to be disastrous in its results. Other promi- 
nent men in different parts of the South held 
the same view, but the majorit}- prevailed 
and secession was readily and enthusiastically 
accomplished. 

FORMATION OF THE NEW CONFEDERACV 

With disunion came the formation of 
a new government. On the 4th of February, 
1861, delegates from six of the seceded States 
assembled at Montgomery, Alabama, and 
proceeded to the establishment of a govern- 
ment tinder the name of the Confederate 
States of America. On the 8th of the 
month the organization was completed by 
the election of Jefferson Davis, of Missis- 
sippi, as provisional President, and Alexander 
JEFFERSON DAVIS. H. Stephens as Vice-President. Thus in the- 



ALEZAXDER H. STEPHENS. 




EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 



369 



heart of the South a rival government to that of the United States was speedily and 
effectively organized. 

On the same day of the meeting of the Confederate Congress at Montgomery a Peace 
Conference, so-called, assembled at Washington City. It was a fruitless and bootless attempt 
to stay the hurricane. Delegates from twenty-one States were present and the optimists 
who composed the body still dreamed of peace. They busied themselves with preparing 
certain pacific and compromising amendments to the Constitution of the United States. 
These were promptly laid before Congress; but that body, freshly gathered from the people 
and inspired with the rising antagonism to the course of the Southeni leaders, gave little 
heed to the recommendations. The Peace Conference was permitted to disperse without 
practical results. 

Through all this excitement and upheaval Buchanan remained in the Presidency. The 
Democratic party still held control of the government. The country seemed on the verge 
of ruin. It appeared that the Ship of State was steered directly for the rocks. The 
Executive department was paralyzed. The President in the midst of his dismay and despair 
went about the halls of the White House wringing his hands. The army of the United 
States had been intentionally sent in detachments to remote frontiers. The fleet was 
scattered in distant seas. The credit of the nation had sunk so low that the government 
was imable to borrow funds for current emergencies at twelve per cent. 

Meanwhile the Southern leaders were having everything according to their counsel. 
All things seemed for the time to favor them in the work of disruption. They proceeded 
to seize public properties, arsenals, and as many as possible of the government posts. Along 
the Atlanitc coast only four of the national ports were for the present saved from capture. 

These were Forts Sumter and Moultrie, in 
Charleston harbor, Fort Pickens, near Pensa- 
cola, and Fortress Monroe, in the Chesapeake. 
All the other naval ports and posts in the 
seceded States were seized by the Confederate 
authorities, even before the organization of 
their eovernment. Meanwhile the local war- 
fare in far-off Kansas continued to break 
out at fitful intervals, but the Free-State party 
gained at length a complete ascendancy and 
the early admission of Kansas into the Union 
with two additional Republican Senators was 
a foregone conclusion. 

At the beginning of 1861 the President, 
rousing himself for a moment made a feeble 
attempt to reinforce and provision the garrison 
of Fort Sumter. The steamer Star of the 
West was sent thither with supplies and men; 
but the Confederates were informed before- 
hand of all that was done and they found no 
trouble in defeating the enterprise. As the 
steamer approached the harbor of Charleston, she was fired on by a Confederate battery and 
compelled to stand off". Thus in gloom and grief and the upheavals of revolution did the 
administration of James Buchanan draw to a close. Such was the dreadful condition of 
24 




ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



370 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 




LINCOLN'S EARLY HOME IN ILLINOIS. 



afifairs that it was deemed prudent for the new President to reach the capital in the night 
and without recofjiiition. For the first time in the history of the nation the chief magis- 
trate of the repubhc slipped into Washington City in the darkness as a means of personal 
safety ! 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

Abraham Lincoln was, however, thu man for the hour and the epoch. He had been 
thrown to the front by those processes which in the aggregate look so much like Providence. 
The new executive, sixteenth President of the United States, was a Kentuckian by birth, 
bom in the county Larue, on the 12th of Februar>-, 
1809. His ancestors were from Rockingham county, 
Virginia. The childhood of Lincoln was passed in 
utter obscurity. The family were backwoods people 
of the lowest order. hi 1816 Thomas Lincoln, the 
father of Abraham, removed to Spencer county, 
Indiana, and built a cabin in the woods, near the 
present village of Gentryville. At sixteen we find 
the future President managing a ferry across the Ohio 
— a service for which he received six dollars a month. 
He managed to obtain in all about one year's schooling. 
In the year of his majority, his father's family removed 
to the north fork of the Sangamon, ten miles west 
of Decatur, Illinois. Here another log-house was built, and here Abraham Lincoln began 
for himself the hard battle of life. 

"The uncleared forest, the unbroken soil, 

The iron bark that turns the lumberer's axe ; 
The rapid that o'erbcars the boalnuin's toil, 

The prairie, hidinj; the mazed wanderer's tracks ; 
The ambushed Indian, and the prowling l)ear, — 

Such were the needs that helped his youth to train. 
Rough culture ; but such trees large fruit may liear, 

If but their stocks be of right girth and grain." 

It were long to tell the stor>' of the hardships and struggles through which young 
Lincoln passed before he gained the attention of his fellowmen and rose to distinction. He 
served as a captain in the Black Hawk War, and afterwards became a lawyer, in which 
profession his amazing common sense rather than erudition brought him success. In 1849 
he was elected to Congress, where he distinguished himself as a humorous speaker. It was 
in 1858 when a candidate for the office of United States Senator from Illinois, that he first 
revealed, in his great debates with Senator Douglas, the full scope of his originality and 
genius. Two vears after this combat of giants he was nominated and elected to the Presi- 
dencv. At the time of his inauguration he had entered his fifty-third year. He delivered 
on that occasion a carefully prepared address declaring his fi.xed purpose to uphold the Con-j 
stitntion and preserve the integrity of the Union. At the first, it was his policy to ignore 
the action of the seceded States as a thing in itself null, void and of no eflfect. 

At the head of the new cabinet was placed William H. Seward, of New York, as 
Secretary of State. Salmon P. Chase, of Ohio, was appointed Secretar\- of the Treasury, 
and Simon Cameron, Secretar\- of War; but the latter was soon succeeded by Edwin M. 
Stanton. The department of the navy was intrusted to Gideon Wells. In his inaugural 
address and first official papers the President distinctly outlined his policy, which was in 



EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 



37- 



brief to repossess the forts, arsenals and pnblic property which had been seized by the Con- 
federates, and to reestablish the authority' of the government in all parts of the Union. 

Now it was that military' preparations and movements were visible at the national 
capital. There was the portent of war. On the 12th of March, 1861, certain commis- 
sioners from the seceded States sought to obtain from the Government a recognition of their 
independence; bnt tiie negotiations were, of course, unsuccessful. Then came the second 
attempt to remforce the garrison of Fort Sumter, and hard upon that act followed the 
beginning of hostilities. 

BOMBARDMENT OF FORT SUMTER. 

The defenses in Charleston harbor were held at this time by a Federal garrison of 
>«veuty-nine men, under command of Major Robert Anderson. Owing to the feebleness of 

nis force, he aban- 
doned Fort Moul- 
trie, and took up 
his position in 
Fort Sumter. By 
this time Charles- 
ton was swarming 
with Confederate 
volunteers, and 
powenul batteries 
were built around 
the harbor bearing 
on Fort Sumter. 
When it was as- 
certained that the 
Federal Govern- 
ment was about 
to reinforce the 
forts, the authori- 
ties of the Con- 
federate States 
determined to an- 
ticipate the move- 
ment by compel- 
ling Anderson to 
surrender. 

To this end 
General G. T. 

PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S FIRST CABINET. Bcaurcgard, com- 

mandant of Charieston, sent a flag to IMajor Anderson, demanding the evacuation of the 
fort. The Major replied that he should hold the fort and defend his flag. On the follow- 
ing morning, April I2th, 1861, at half-past four o'clock the first gun of the great war was 
discharged from a Confederate batten". A terrific bombardment of thirty-fou' hours 
duration followed. Fort Sumter was beaten into ruins and obliged to capitulate. The 
honors of war were granted to Anderson and his men, who had made a brave and obstinate 




J/- 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



resistance. The sequel showed that no lives were lost either in the fort or on the shore. 
The Confederates, by the complete success of their initial onset, obtained control of 
Charleston harbor. 

The effect, however, bore hard on the aggressors. The news of the capture of Sumter 
spread through the countr}' like a flame of fire. 

Through the crooke<l lane. 
Through dashes and flashes of rain, 

The news flew out to the country wide 

Of the cannon-shot in Sumter's side. 
And the crowds at the meeting-place 
Had the fire of anger in every face ! 

There had been on the part of tlie people a vague expectation of violence, but the 
acttial shock came like a thunder peal. Tlie towns became gorged with excited crowds 
eager to gather tidings 
and comment on the out- 
break of war. Gray- 
haired men talked 
gravely of the deed that 
was done, and prophesied 
its consequences. The 
general effect of the 
assault on Sumter was 
to consolidate opinion in 
both the North and the 
Sotith. On either side 
the sentiments of the 
people were crj-stallized 
into a finnly set antag- 
onism, which was only 
to be broken by the 
shock of battle. 

With the fall of 

Sumter, President Lincoln immediately issued a call for seventy-fi\-e thousand volun- 
teers, to ser\^e three months in the overthrow of the secession movement. Two days 
later Virginia seceded from the Union. On the 6th of May, Arkansas followed, and 
then North Carolina, on the 20th of the same month. In Tennessee, particularly in 
East Tennessee, there was a powerful opposition to disunion, and the secession ordinance 
was with great difficulty forced upon the people, June 8th, 1S61. In Missouri the effort of 
the secessionists to withdraw from the Union precipitated civil war, and in Kentucky the 
authorities issued a proclamation of neutrality. In Maryland the people divided into 
hostile parties, the disunion sentiment being preponderant. 

FIRST BLOOD SHED IN THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 

The North responded promptly to the call of the President. \'olunteers at once began 
to march for Washington. On the 19th of April, when the first regiments of Massachusetts 
men were passing through Baltimore they were fired upon by the citizens and three mca 
were killed. This was the first bloodshed of the war. On the day before this event a body 
of Confederates advanced on Harper's Fern-, to capture the armory at that place. The 




ATTACK ON FORT SUMTER FROM MORRIS ISLAND. 



EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 



373 



officer in command hastily destroyed a portion of the vast magazines and then escaped into 
Pennsylvania. On the 20th of April a company of Virginians attacked the great navy 
yard at Norfolk. The officers fired the buildings and ships, spiked the guns and withdrew. 
The Confederates took possession and recovered many of the guns and vessels, turning them 
in after time against the Government. 

Virginia soon swarmed with volunteers from the South and it was not long until Wash- 
ington City was in imminent danger of capture. The National Government and the great 
communities of the Northern States were astounded at the vehement energ}^ displayed by the 
Confederates. The first duty of the administration was to secure the Capital. On the 3d 
of May the President issued a new call for men, setting the number at eighty-three thousand 

and the term of ser- 
vice at three years or 
during the war. A 
fleet was equipped and 
sent forth to blockade 
the Southern ports. 
On every side was 
heard the note of pre- 
paration. The spirit 
of the people both 
North and South wae 
thoroughly aroused 
and a great war 
thundered in the 
horizon. 

Meanwhile the 
Confederate Congress 
adjourned from Mont- 
gomery to meet on 
the 20th of July, at 
Richmond, which was 
chosen as the capital 
of the Confederacy. 




■ -->!ili«ilttili*IM«*liilBl*i'v.- 



Su\ hKhlGNIV rjLAG 0¥ SOUTH CAROLINA — UNION COCKADKS ; AND COCKADES 
OF SOUTH CAROLINA, VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. 



To that place had 
already come Jefferson 

Davis and the officers of his Cabinet. There the seceded government took form and sub- 
stance. The men who had its destinies in charge were capable and experienced statesmen, 
full of animosity and determined to win independence or perish in the conflict. So stood 
the antagonistic powers at the beginning of summer, 1861. It was now evident to all men 
— slow indeed had they been to believe it — that one of the greatest conflicts of modem 
times was impending over the United States. What, then, were the causes which produced 
the Great Rebellion of 186 1 and plunged the country into a ruinous and bloody civil war? 

The first and most general of these causes was i//e different construction put upon the 
national Constitution by the people of the North and the South. A difference had always 
existed as to how that instrument should be understood and interpreted. The question had 
respect to the relation between the States and the general Government. One party held 
that under the Constitution the Union of the States is indissoluble ; that the sovereignty of 



374 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



the nation is lodged in the central Government ; that the States are subordinate thereto ; 
that the constitutional acts of Congress are binding on the States ; that the highest 
allegiance of the citizen is due to the general Government, not to his State ; and that all 
attempts at nullification and disunion are in their nature disloyal and treasonable. 

CONSTRUCTION OF THE CONSTITUTION BY DISUNIONISTS. 

The disunionists, on the other hand, held that the national Constitution is a compact 
among sovereign States ; that these States constitute a Confederacy, or what the Germanf 
call Staatenbutid ; that for certain reasons 
the Union may be dissolved by the States ; 
that the sovereignty of the nation is lodged 
in the individual States and not in a central 
government ; that Congress can exercise no 
other than delegated powers ; that a State 
feeling aggrieved may annul an act of Con- 
gress so far as itself is concerned ; that the 
highest allegiance of the citizen is due to 
his own State and afterwards in a secondary 
sense to the general Government ; and that 
acts of nullification and disunion are justifi- 
able, revolutionary and honorable. The 
theory- was, in brief, that the Constitution 
itself provided that the States under the 
Constitution might abrogate the Constitution 
as it related to themselves and thereby dis- 
solve the Union. 

The issue thus stated and existent in 
the United States was as serious and portentous as an\- that ever threatened the peace 
of a nation. It struck into the verj' vitals of the Government. It threatened to undo 
the whole civil structure of the United States. The question had existed from the founda- 
tion of the Government. For a long time the parties who disputed about the meaning 
of the Constitution were scattered in various sections. In our earlier history the 
doctrine of State sovereignty had been most advocated in New England. It was there 
that the greatest suspicion of the Union existed. With the rise of the tariff question 
the local position of the parties was shifted and reversed. The tariff — a Congres- 
sional measure — favored the Eastern States at the expense of the South. Therefore 
the people of New England, and ultimately of the greater part of the North, passed over 
to the advocacy of national sovereignty, while the people of the South espoused the doctrine 
of State Rights. As early as 1831 tlie riglit of a State to nullify an act of Congress was 
openly advocated in South Carolina and by her greatest statesman in the Senate of the 
United States. The belief in State sovereignty became more and more prevalent in the 
South, less and less prevalent in the North. Such was the origin of sectional parties in the 
^country. 

VITAL ISSUES IN CONTENTION. 

The second general cause of the civil war was the different systems of labor in the North 
and the South. It was in a word the question of slavery'. Possibly, indeed, this cause 
ought to be stated first, as it underlay ultimately even the dispute about the Constitution 




MASSACHUSETTS TROOPS ATTACKED IN THE STREETS 
OF BALTIMORE. 



EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 



375 



and the meaning of that instrument. In the South labor had tended naturally to agricul- 
tural production ; in the East and North, to manufactures and commerce. In the South 
slavery existed. In the East and North slavery had existed, but had passed away. In the 
former section the laborers were bondmen, property, slaves ; in the latter, free men, citizens, 
voters. In the South the theory was that capital is the owner of labor ; in the North, that 
both labor and capital are free. The abolition of slavery in the Eastern and Middle States 
had been easily effected because of the unprofitableness of that form of labor. In the five 
great States formed out of the territory northwest of the River Ohio slavery' had been 
excluded by the Jeffersonian ordinance of 1787. There was thus a dividing line through 
the Union. On the one side there was slavery' ; on the other, free labor. A powerful 
antagonism existed on this account between the two sections, and the discord was aggravated 
by several subordinate causes. 

Among these maybe mentioned, first of all, the invention of the cotton-gin. In 1793 
Eli Whitney, of -Massachusetts, fresh from college, went to Georgia as a school teacher, and 

-. , - resided with the family of Mrs. Greene, 

widow of General Nathaniel Greene of the 
Revolution. While there he became much 
interested in the difficult process of picking 
cotton by hand, that is, separating the seed 
from the fibre. So tedious was the process 
that the production of upland cotton was 
nearly profitless. The cotton plant grew 
well in many of the Southern States, but 
the production was rendered of no efiect 
by the amount of labor required to prepare 
the product for the market. Whitney, with 
the inventive curiosity of his race, succeeded 
constructinar a 




in 



gin which astonished the 



HORRORS OF THE FUGITrVE SLAVE LAW. 



beholder by the rapidity and excellence of 
its work. Cotton in the seed was separated 
to perfection and with great facility by the machine. Cotton suddenly became the most 
profitable of all the staples of the South. The industry of the cotton-producing States 
was revolutionized. Whitney obtained patents on his invention, but the greed for obtain- 
ing and using his machine was so great that no court could or would protect him in his 
rights. Before the Rebellion of 1861 it "vas estimated that the cotton-gin had added an 
aggregate of a billion dollars to the revenues of the Southern States. Just in proportion 
to the increased profitableness of cotton slave labor became important, slaves valuable, 
and the system of slavery a fixed and deep-rooted institution. 

Slave-ownership was thus imbedded in Southern society. The separation between the 
laboring and the non-laboring class was not only a separation of race, but it was a separation 
of condition. The condition had become hereditary. Slavery came to be regarded as a 
natural, rightful and necessary part of the best social organization in the world. Seeing 
themselves lifted above the servile class, the slaveholders came to look upon the system of , 
free labor and the free laborers of the North with contempt. 

The reader will be able in these antecedents to discover the bottom reasons of the 
several crises through which the nation had already passed. The slavery question became 
a menace to all politics and statesmanship. The danger of disunion springing from this 



376 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



cause was already fully manifested in the Misscntri agitation of 1820-21. Threats of dis- 
solving the Union were freely and recklessly made both in the South and the North ; in the 
South, because of the proposed rejection of Missouri as a slave-holding State ; in the North, 
because of the proposed enlargement of the dominion of slaver}'. Henr^' Clay and his 
fellow-statesmen sought by the Missouri Compromise to remove forever the slavery issue 
from the politics of the country-, but their success was temporary, evanescent. Lincoln 
himself, in the opening of his great debates with Senator Douglas, announced first of all to 
the nation the ultimate irreconcilability of the opposing elements in the American system. 
He declared that a house divided against itself cannot stand ; that the institution of slaver^-, 
to carry out the analogy, must either become universal in the United States or else by limi- 
tation be put in such a conditiou as to lead to its ultimate extinction. 

THE TARIFF CHASM BETWEEN AGRICULTURE AND MANUFACTURE. 

Returning to the historical causes of the civil war wc find the next in order of time to 
be the tmlli/ication acts 0/ South Carolina. These, like the rest, turned upon the institution 
of slavery and the 
profitableness o f 
cotton. The 
Southern States 
had become cotton- 
producing; the 
Eastern States had 
devoted their ener- 
gies to manufac- 
tures. The tariS" 
seemed to favor 
manufactures a t 
the expense of the 
producers of raw 
material. Mr. 
Calhoun and his 
friends proposed to 
remedy the evil 
complained of by 
annulling the laws 
of Congress and 
thus forcing an 
abolition of the 
tariff. His measures 
failed, but another 
compromise was 
found necessarj- in 
order to allay the 
animosities which 
had been awakened. 

The annexation of Texas was the next step in the great evolution leading to disunion 
and war. With that event came a tremendous enlargement of the domain of slavery and 
the reawakening of the agitation. Those who opposed the Mexican War did so not so much 




n. S. FRIGATE ST. LAWRHNCK SINKING THK CONFEDERATE PRFVATEER PETREI,, 
IN CHARLESTON HARBOR, AUGUST 4, 1S61. 



EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 377 

because of the injustice of the conflict as because of the fact that thereby the area of slave 
temtory would be vastly extended. Next, in 1854, came the passage of the Kansas- 
Nebraska Bill. The Missouri Compromise was repealed, and the whole question opened 
anew. By this time the character and civilization of the Northern and Southern people 
had become widely diSerent. A much more general cause of the Civil War was the want 
of intercourse between the people of the North and the South. Obeying those cosmic laws by 
which the population of the earth has always been distributed, the people west of the Alle- 
ghanies had been carried to their destinations in channels flowing from the east to the west 
— never from the north to the south. The artificial contrivances of civilization had been 
arranged along the same lines. The great railroads and thoroughfares ran east and west. 
All migrations had been back and forth in the same course. Between the North and the 
South there had been only a modicum of travel and interchange of opinion. The people 
of the two sections had become more unacquainted than they were even at the time of 
the Revolution. The inhabitants of the North and the South, without intending it, had 
become estranged, jealous, suspicious. They misrepresented each other's beliefs and pur- 
poses. They suspected each other of dishonesty and ill-will. Before the outbreaic of the 
war, the people of the two sections had come to look upon each other almost in the light 
of diflerent nationalities. 

EFFECTS OF SECTIONAL LITERATURE AND DEMAGOGUES. 

Still a fourth cause maybe found in the publication and influence of sectional books and 
writings. During the twenty years preceding the war many works were published both in 
the North and thp South whose popularity depended wholly or in part on the animosity 
and distrust existing between the two sections. Such books were frequently filled with 
ridicule and falsehood. The manners and customs, the language and beliefs of one section 
were held up to the contempt and scorn of the people of the other section. The minds ot 
all classes, especially of the young, were thus prejudiced and poisoned. In the North the 
belief was fostered that the South was given up to inhumanity, ignorance and barbarism, 
while in the South the opinion prevailed that the Northern people were a selfish race of 
mean, mercenary, cold-blooded Yankees. 

To these antecedents must be added, in the next place, the evil influence of demagogues. 
It is the misfortune of republican governments that they many times fall under the domi- 
nation of bad men. In the United States the demagogue has enjoyed special opportunities 
for mischief. In the sixth decade of the century American statesmanship and patriotism 
were at a law ebb. Ambitious and scheming men had obtained control of the political 
parties and made themselves leaders of public opinion. The purposes of such were selfish 
in the last degree. The welfare and peace of the country were put aside as of little value. 
In order to gain power and keep it, many unprincipled men in the South were anxious to 
destroy the Union, while the demagogues of the North were willing to abuse the Union in 
order to accomplish their purposes. 

To all these causes must finally be added a growing public opiiiion in the North against 
the institution of slavery itself— 2i hostility inborn and inbred against human chattelhood as 
a fact. The conscience of the nation began to struggle, and the belief was more and more 
enteitained tht.t slavery was a civil and social cx\m& per se, and ought to be destroyed. 
This opinion, this conviction, comparatively feeble at the beginning of the war, was 
rapidly developed, and had much to do in determining the direction and final issue of the 
conflict Such in brief were the principal causes which led to the Civil War in the United 
States, one of the most terrible and bloody strifes of modem times. 




CHAPTER XXVI. 



BEGINNING OF THE CONFLICT. 



STRUGGLE now impending was between the Union 
under the Constitution, upheld by the Government at 
Washington and supported bj" the populous Northern 
States, on the one side, and the new Confederate 
government established at Richmond, backed by the 
forces of the South and the whole power of the ancient 
slave-holding system, on the other. The war proper 
may be said to have begun on the 24th of May, 1861. 
On that day the Union anny crossed the Potomac from 
Washington City to Alexandria. At this time Fortress 
Monroe, at the mouth of the James, was held by General 
B. F. Butler, with twelve thousand men. In the 
immediate vicinity, at a place called Bethel Church, 
was a detachment of Confederates under command of General Magruder. On the loth of 
June a body of Union troops was sent to dislodge them, and was repulsed with considerable 
losses. Such was the opening scene in Old Virginia. 

West of the mountains the conquest of the State had been undertaken by a Union 
army under General George B. McClellan. In the latter part of May General Thomas A. 
Morris, commauding a force of Ohio and Indiana troops, advanced from Parkersburg to 
Grafton, and on the 3d of June attacked the Confederates at Philippa. In this fight the 
Federals were successful, and the Confederates retreated towards the mountains. .\t this 
juncture General McClellan arrived, assumed command, and on the nth of July gained a 
victory of some importance at Rich Mountain. General Garnet, the Confederate com- 
mander, fell back to Cheat River, where he was a second time defeated and himself killed 
in battle. 

The ne.xt combat was on the loth of .\ugust, between General Floyd, commanding 
the Confederates at Camifex Ferry, on Gauley River, and the Union forces under General 
Rosecrans. The latter were victorious and the Confederates retreated. On the 14th of 
September a division of Confederates under General Robert E. Lee was defeated at Cheat 
Mountain, by which success the Federal authority was restored throughout West Virginia. 
In the meantime General Robert Patterson marched with a Federal force from Cham- 
bersburg to retake Harper's Ferry. On the nth of the month the division of Colonel 
Lewis Wallace made a sudden and successful onset upon a detachment of Confederates at 
Romney. Patterson crossed the Potomac with the main body, entered the Shenandoah 
Valley and pressed back the Confederates to Winchester. Thus far there had been only 
petty conflicts — the premouitorv' onsets and skirmishes of the great struggle. But the time 
had now arrived for the first real battle of the war. 

(37S) 



EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 



379 



After the retirement of the Confederates from West Virginia the Confederate forces of 
the State, commanded by General Beauregard, were concentrated at Manassas Junction, on 
the Orange Railroad, twenty-seven miles west of Alexandria. Another large Confederate 
force under General Joseph E. Johnston, lay in the Shenandoah Valley, within supporting 
distance of Beauregard. The Union army at Alexandria was commanded by General Irwin 
McDowell, and General Patterson was stationed in front of Washington to watch Johnston's 
movements and prevent the latter from joining Beauregard. 

FIRST BATTLE OF BULL RUN. 

The advance of the Union army was begun on the i6th of July. Two days afterwards 
an unimportant engagement took place between Centreville and Bull Run. The Federals 

, then pressed on, and on the 

morning of the 21st of July 
came upon the Confederate 
army strongly posted between 
Bull Run and Manassas Junc- 
tion. Here a general battle 
ensued, continuing with great 
severity until noonday. The 
advantage was with the Union 
army, and it seemed probable 
that the Confederates would 
suffer a complete defeat ; but 
in the crisis of the battle 
General Johnston arrived with 
nearl}- six thousand fresh 
troops from the Shenandoah 
Valley. The tide of victory 
turned immediately, and 
McDowell's whole army was 
thrown back in rout and con- 
fusion. A panic spread through 
the Union forces. The anny 
had been followed out from 
Washington by a throng of 
non-combatants. Soldiers and 
citizens became mixed together 
in the retreat, and the whole 
mass rolled back in disorgani- 
zation into the defences of 
Washington. The losses on 
both sides were great, being 
on the Union side 2951 and 
on the Confederate side 2050. 
Never before in America had such numbers fallen in battle ; and yet this was but the 
feeble introduction to the bloody, desperate and long-continued struggle which was about 
to ensue. 




GENERAL P. G. T. BEAUREGARD. 



EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 



381 



Great were the chagrin and humiliation of the North and great was the exultation of 
the Confederates. The Federal government was with good reason alarmed for the safety of 
Washington City. In Richmond there were jubilation and confidence. There on the day 
before the battle the new Confederate government was organized. The Southern Congress 
assembled and into it were gathered the pride, the talent and the experience of the South. 
Many men of distinguished abilities were there. Jefferson Davis, the President, was a far- 
sighted and talented man. His experience was wide and thorough as a civilian and his 
reputation as a soldier, earned in the Mexican War, was enviable. He had served in both 
Houses of Congress and as a member of Pierce's Cabinet. His talents, character and ardent 
advocacy of State Rights made him the natural, if not the inevitable, leader of the Con- 
federacy in the impending conflict with the Union. 

For a brief season the disaster at Bull Run seemed to paralyze the Union cause. Mili- 
tary operations in the East ceased. In Missouri, however, hostilities broke out and were 
attended with important consequences. Missouri, though a slave-holding State, had not 
seceded from the Union. The convention which was called by Governor Jackson in accord- 
ance with an act of the legislatiire refused to pass an ordinance of secession. The Disunion 
party, however, was strong and aggressive. The governor was himself the leader of this 
party and the Disunionists were loath to give up the State. 

Civil war supervened. Federal and Confederate camps were organized in many parts 
of the State. The Confederates captured the United States arsenal at Liberty, in Clay 
county, and obtained tliereb)- supplies, arras and munitions. They then formed Camp 
Jackson, in the western suburbs of St. Louis, and the arsenal of that city was endangered. 

At this juncture, however. Captain Lyon 
appeared on the scene and removed the 
arms and stores of St. Louis first to Alton 
and then to Springfield, Illinois. He then 
attacked Camp Jackson and broke up that 
rendezvous of the Confederate party. 

The Confederates from Arkansas and 
Texas now made a rush to secure the lead 
mines in the southwest part of Missouri. 
On the 17th of June General Nathaniel 
Lyon encountered a Confederate force 
under Governor Jackson, at Booneville, 
and gained a decided advantage. On the 
5th of July the Federals under Colonel 
Franz Si gel were successful in a severe 
engagement with Jackson's forces at Car- 
thage. Then came the battle of Bull 

DEATH OF GENERAL LYON AT WILSON'S CREEK. j^^j^ jj^ ^]^g g^^St Qu the lOth of AugUSt 

the severest encounter thus far in the West occurred at Wilson's Creek, a short distance 
south of Springfield, Missouri. General Lyon made a daring attack on the Confederate 
forces of Generals McCuUough and Price. The Federals at first gained _ the field, but 
General Lyon was killed and his men retreated, the command falling to Sigel. 

General Price at the head of the Confederate army pressed northward across the State 
to Lexington, on the Missouri River. Here was stationed a division of twenty-six hundred 
Federals under command of Colonel IMulligan. The fort was stubbornly defended, but 




382 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



Mulligan was obliged to capitulate. Price turned to the south ; the Federals rallied, and 
on the i6th of October Le.xiugton was retaken. General John C. Fremont, who had been 
appointed to the connuand of all the Union forces in Missouri, followed the Confederates as 
far as Springfield, and was on the eva of making an attack when he was superseded by 
General Hunter. The latter drew back to St. Louis, where he was in turn superseded by 
General Henry W. Halleck. Late in the year Price fell back towards Arkansas. 

BATTLE OF BELMONT. 
The only remaining movement of importance was at Belmont, on the Mississippi. It 
will be remembered that Kentucky had declared neutrality as her policy in the war. The 
Confederate go\ernment, however, sent General Leonidas Pope with an army into the State, 
to enable the Disunion party to overbear the Unionists. Pope captured the town of Cohun- 
bus and planted batteries at that place commanding the Mississippi. The Confederates 




A MOMITOR AND A BLOCKA DE-RUNNER 

gathered in force on the opposite bank of the river. With a \icw to dislodging this body. 
Colonel Ulysses S. Grant, with three tliousand Illinois troops, was sent by way of Cairo 
into Missouri. On November 7th he attacked tlie Confederate camp at Belmont and was 
successful in the onset. General Pope threw reinforcements across the river and the Ken- 
tucky batteries were brought to bear on the Federal position. Grant was obliged to fall 
back without much advantage from his initial success. 1 

After Bull Run the government concerned itself first of all with the defences of Wash- 
ington. The autumn of 1861 was a season of depression to the Union cause. A reaction 
came, however, for with the subsidence of the panic the administration redoubled its 
energies. Volunteers came in great numbers from the Northern States, and tlie first two 
calls were quickly filled. The aged General Scott, commander-in-chief of the armies, found 
himself unable longer to bear the bur'.. n resting upon him and retired from active duty. 
General George B. McClellan was called over from West Virginia and put in command of 
the Armv of the Potomac. 



EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 3S3 

The event showed that the young general as an organizer and disciplinarian had no 
superior. The forces under his command were by the middle of October increased to a 
hundred and fifty thousand men. The army was no longer a mere rout of volunteers, but 
a compact, well disciplined and powerful engine of war. On the 21st of October a force of 
two thousand Federals under Colonel Baker crossed the Potomac at Ball's Blufif, where they 
were attacked by the Confederates under General Evans and driven back to the river. 
Colonel Baker was killed and his force routed with a loss of fully eight hundred men. 

One of the first tasks imposed on the Federal Government was to gain full command 
of the seacoast. In the summer of 186 1 several naval expeditions were sent out to maintain 
the authority of the United States along the Confederate sea-border. Commodore String- 
ham and General Butler sailed to the coast of North Carolina, and the 29th of August 
captured the forts at Hatteras Inlet. On the 7th of November an armament under Com- 
modore Dupont and General Thomas W. Sherman took Forts Walker and Beauregard at 
the entrance of Port Royal. Hilton Head, a point most advantageous for operations against 
Charleston and Savannah, thus fell into the power of the government. A blockade was 
successfully established around the whole Confederate coast, and soon became so rigorous as 
to cut off all communication between the Confederate States and foreign nations. A serious 
difficulty arose at this juncture on account of the blockade between the Federal government 
and Great Britain. 

DANGER FOLLOWING THE SEIZURE OF MASON AND SLIDELL. 

One of the chief reliances of the Confederacy was the cotton crop of the Southern 
States. American cotton had become a virtual necessity to the factories of England. To 
have the cotton supply cut off suddenly was in the nature of a calamity to the industrial 
interests of Great Britain. A state of feeling supervened in that country unfavorable to the 
United States and sympathetic with the Confederacy. The British government desired the 
success of the rebellion. The Confederate administration played well to this sentiment. 
James M. Mason and John Slidell, fonnerly Senators of the United States, were appointed 
ambassadors of the Confederate States to France and England. Before they left America, 
however, the Union squadron had closed around the Southern ports, and the ambassadors 
were obliged to make their escape from Charleston harbor in a blockade nmner. Making 
their way from that port, they reached Havana in safety and were taken on board of the 
British mail-steamer Trent for Europe. 

The Trent sailed, but on the 8th of November was overtaken by the United States 
frigate San Jacinto^ under Captain Wilkes. The Trent was unceremoniously hailed and 
boarded. The two ambassadors and their secretaries were seized, transferred to the San 
facinto^ carried to Boston and imprisoned. The Trent was allowed to proceed on her way 
to England. The story of the insult to the British flag was told, and the whole kingdom 
burst out in a blaze of wrath. 

The sequel showed how little disposed nations are to regard consistency and right when 
their prejudices are involved. For nearly a half century the United States had stoutly con- 
tended for the exemption of neutral flags on the high sea. The American theory had 
always been that the free flag makes free goods, contraband of war only excepted. Great 
Britain, on the other hand, had been immemorially the most arrogant of all civilized nations 
in the matter of search and seizure. She had in the course of her history insulted almost 
every flag seen on the ocean. But in this particular instance the position of the parties was 
suddenly reversed. The people of the United States loudly applauded Captain Wilkes ; the 
House of Representatives passed a vote of thanks to him, with the presentation of a sword. 



3S4 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



I 



Even the administration was disposed to defend his action. Great Britain, witli equal 
inconsistency, flun<T herself into a furious passion for the alleged insult to her flag and 
sovereignty. For a short time it appeared that war between the two nations was inevitable. 
This peril, however, was avoided by the adroit and far-reaching diplomacy of William 
H. Seward, Secretary of State. When Great Britain demanded reparation for the insult 
and immediate liberation of the prisoners, he replied in a mild, cautious and very able 
paper. It was conceded that the seizure of Mason and Slidell was not in accordance with 

the law of nations. A suitable apology was ac- 
cordingly made, and the Confederate ambassadors 
wore sent to their destination abroad. The peril 
of war was averted, and Great Britain was un- 
wittingh- committed to a policy respecting the 
rights of neutrals which she had hitherto denied, 
and which the United States had always con- 
^' • ''1 ^ Jl tended for. 

The beginning of 1862 found the government 

with an anny of about 
four hundred and 
fifty thousand men. 
Nearl)- two hundred 
thousand of these 
composed the Anny 
of the Potomac undei 
General McClellan. 
Another division, 
under General Don 
Carlos Buell, was 
stationed at Louis- 
ville, Kentucky ; and 
it was in this depart- 
ment that the cam- 
paigns of the \eaT 
were begun. Early 
in January' the Con- 
suRRENDER OF FORT DOKELSON. federate Colonel 

Humphrey Marshall, commanding a force on Big Sandy River, in Eastern Kentucky, was 
attacked and defeated by a detachment of Unionists under Colonel James A. Garfield. 
Ten days later an important battle was fought at Mill Spring, Kentucky. The Con- 
federates were led bv Generals Crittenden and Zollicoffer and the Federals by General 
George H. Thomas. Both sides lost heavily, and the Confederates were defeated; General 
Zollicoffer was among the slain. 

CAPTURE OF FORTS HENRV AND DONELSON. 

Operations much more important soon followed on the Tennessee and Cumberland 
Rivers. The Tennessee, at the southern border of Kentucky, was commanded by Fort 
Henry, and the Cumberland by Fort Donelson, ten miles south of the Tennessee line. At 
the beginning of the year the Federal officers planned the capture of both these places. 




EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 



385 



Commodore Foote was sent up the Tennessee with a flotilla of gunboats and at the same 
time General Grant moved against Fort Henry. Before he reached his destination, how- 
ever, the gunboats compelled the evacuation of the fort, the Confederates escaping to Fort 
Donelson. 

The flotilla now dropped down the Tennessee, took on supplies at Cairo, and thea 
ascended the Cumberland. Grant crossed the country from Fort Henry to Donelson, and 
found the place well defended by ten thousand Confederates, under General Simon B. 
Buckner. Grant's forces were fully twenty-five thousand strong; but the weather was 
extremely bad, and the assaults on the fortifications must be made at great peril and disad- 
vantage. On the 14th of February, 1862, the gunboats in the Cumberland were repulsed 
witli considerable losses. On the next day the garrison of Fort Donelson attempted to 
break through Grant's lines but were driven back with much slaughter. On the i6th, 
Buckner was obliged to capitulate. His army, numbering fully ten thousand men, became 




BATTLE OF SHILOH. 

prisoners of war, and all the magazines, stores and guns of the fort fell into the hands of the 
Federals. It was the first decided Union victory of the war. The immediate result of the 
capture was the evacuation of Kentucky and the capital of Tennessee by the Confederates. 
Nor did they ever afterwards recover the ground thus lost. 

THE BATTLE SHOCK AT SHILOH. 
Such was the real beginning of the military career of General Ulysses S. Grant. That 
•ofl5cer at once followed up his success by ascending the Tennessee river as far as Pittsburg 
landing. In the first days of April he fonned a camp on the left bank of that stream at a 
place called Shiloh Church. Here on the morning of the 6th of the month the Union army 
-was suddenly and audaciously attacked by the Confederates under Generals Albert S. 
Johnston and Beauregard. The shock of the onset was at first irresistible. All day long 
the battle raged with unprecedented slaughter on both sides. The Federals were gradually 
forced back nearer and nearer to the Tennessee, until at nightfall they came under the pro- 
tection of the gunboats in the river. Darkness closed on the scene with the conflict unde- 
cided; but in the desperate crisis General Buell arrived from Nashville with strong rein- 
forcements. 
25 



386 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

General Grant, however, by no means despaired of gaining the victory. During the 
night he, with General William T. Sherman, made arrangements to assume the offensive on 
the morrow. General Johnston had been killed in the first day's battle. Beauregard, on 
whom the command was devolved, was unable to gain any further successes. On the con- 
trar>-, when the battle was renewed on the morning of the 7th, everything went against the 
Confederates, and they were obliged to fall back in full retreat to Corinth. The losses in 
killed, wounded and missing in this dreadful conflict were more than ten thousand on each 
side. Never before had there been such a harvest of death in the countries on this side of 
the Atlantic. 

Meanwhile the Federals had been steadily successful in a series of actions on the 
Mississippi. The Confederates after the evacuation of Columbus, Kentucky, had proceeded 
to Island Number Ten, a few miles below, and built thereon strong fortifications command- 
ino- the two channels of the river. On the western shore the town of New Madrid was held 
by the Confederates. Against this place General John Pope advanced with a body of 
Western troops, and was successful in capturing the town. Commodore Foote's flotilla 
attacked the fortifications on the island, and Pope's forces cooperated with the gunboats in 
a siege of twenty-three days' duration. On the 7th of April, while the Union anny at 
Shiloh, rallying from apparent defeat, was pressing the Confederates in the direction of 
Corinth, the garrison of Island Number Ten, numbering five thousand, were made prisoners 
of war. Thus was the Mississippi, as far down as Memphis, opened to navigation and 
secured to the control of the Federal fleets. 

In the meantime a severe battle had been fought at Pea Ridge, Arkansas, between the 
Union army under General Curtis and the Confederates and Indians, twenty thousand 
strong, connnanded by IMcCullough, Mcintosh and Pike. The battle was fought on the 
6th and 7th of March and resulted in a Federal victor}-. ^McCollough and Mcintosh were 
both killed and their shattered forces fell back towards Texas. The Union losses likewise 
were very severe and the battle had little consequence in the general issues of the war. 

DUEL BETWEEN THE MERRIMAC AND MONITOR. 

Now it was that the attention of the .Vmcricau people was called to one of the most 
striking incidents of naval warfare. After the destruction of the Federal navy-yard at 
Norfolk the Confederates had raised the United States frigate Merrimac, one of the sunken 
ships, and plated her sides with an impenetrable armor of iron. .\t this time the Union 
fleet was lying at Fortress Monroe. When the equipment of the Merrimac was completed, 
she was sent down to attack and destroy the squadron. Reaching that place on the 8th of 
March, the Merrimac, called by the Confederates the I'ir^iiiia, began the work of destruc- 
tion, and two powerful ships, the Cumber/and and the Congress were sent to the bottom. 
It appeared certain that the work would go on until the Union fleet should be utterly 
destroyed. 

Sometime before this, however, Captain John Ericsson, of New York, had invented 
and built a peculiar war-vessel which he named the Monitor, with a single round tower of 
iron exposed above the water-line. The tower was made to revolve so as to bring its two 
great gnus to bear alternately on any object of attack. The port-holes were thus only 
momentarilv exposed to an enemy's shot. This strange craft steamed out from New York 
and came around to Fortress Monroe at the ver\- time when the liuge ironclad Virginia was 
making havoc with the Union fleet. On tlie morning of the 9th of March the two floating 
monsters came face to face and turned their terrible enginerv upon each other. For five 




(387) 



388 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

hours the contest continued, and at the end of tliat time the I'irginia was so much worsted 
that slie gave up the contest and returned in a damaged condition to Norfolk. The event 
produced the greatest e-xcitement and the navy department of the United States turned its 
whole energies for the time to the construction of the new war vessels which took the name 
of Monitors. 

In February of this year a strong force under General Ambrose E. Burnside and Com- 
modore Goldsborough was sent against the Confederate garrison at Roanoke Island. On 
the 8th of tlie month the Federal squadron attacked and captured the place, making pris- 
oners of nearly three thousand Confederates. Burnside next proceeded against New Berne, 
North Carolina, and on the 14th of March captured that place after a severe engagement 
He ne.xt took Fort Macon at the entrance to the harbor of Beaufort. On the 25th of April 
he gained possession of the town itself. 

CAPTURE OF NEW ORLEANS. 

Meanwhile on the nth of the same month Fort Pulaski, at the mouth of the Savan- 
nah river, had surrendered to General Q. A. Gilmore. A still greater reverse awaited the 
Confederates at New Orleans. In the beginning of April a powerful squadron under Gen- 
eral Butler and Admiral Farragut sailed up the Mississippi as far as Forts Jackson and 
St. Philip, thirty miles from the gulf. These forts were built on opposite shores of the 
Mississippi, commanding the river, and the channel between was obstructed and sown with 
torpedoes. 

On the 1 8th of April the Federal fleet of forty-five vessels began the bombardment of 
the forts. For six days there was an incessant stonn of shot and shell on the fortification. 
Farragiit now undertook to run past the batteries; and notwithstanding the hazard, he suc- 
ceeded in breaking the chain which the Confederates had stretched across the river and in 
overpowering their fleet. The Federal squadron now came unopposed to New Orleans, 
and the city yielded. A garrison of fifteen thousand Federal soldiers under General Butler 
was established in the metropolis of the South. Forts Jackson and St. Philip surrendered 
two days afterwards, and the control of tlie lower Mississippi was obtained by the Federal 
Government. 

After Donelson and Shiloh the Confederates, though disheartened for a season, rallied 
at length and returned to the conflict. Kentucky was invaded by two Confederate armies, 
one under General Kirby Smith and the other under General Braxton Bragg. The first 
pressed on to Richmond, where on the 30th of August a battle was fought in which the 
Federals were routed with heavy losses. Lexington and Frankfort were taken and Cincin- 
nati was seriously threatened. Bragg's army advanced on Munfordville and there on the 
17th of September captured a Federal force of fully four thousand men. The Confederate 
General pressed on towards Louisville, but General Buell made a forced march from Ten- 
nessee and arrived in that city only one day ahead of Bragg. That da\-, however, turned 
the scale. The Confederates were turned back, and Buell's army was rapidly augmented 
to a hundred thousand men. That officer took the field, and on the Sth of October fought 
with Bragg at Perryville a severe but indecisive battle. The Confederates then fell back 
towards East Tennessee, sweeping with them out of Kentucky a train of four thousand 
wagons laden with the spoils of the campaign. 

BATTLES OF lUKA AND CORINTH. 

The next change of .scene was to tlie lianks of the Mi.ssi.ssippi. On the 19th of Sep- 
tember a hard battle was fought at luka between the Federal army under Grant and Rose- 



EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 



389 



crans and the Confederates under Price. The latter suffered a defeat, losing in addition to 
his killed and wounded nearly a thousand prisoners. Rosecrans afterwards took post at 
Corinth with twenty thousand men, while General Grant with the remainder of the Federal 
army marched to Jackson, Tennessee. The Confederate commanders Van Dorn and Price, 
perceiving the division of the Federal forces, turned about with the intention of recaptur- 
ing Corinth, and accordingly attacked the Federal lines at that place on the 23d of October, 
and a se\ ere engagement ensued with heavy losses to both parties, but the Confederates 
were repulsed. 

The close of 1862 found the Mississippi River open to the Federals above and below 
Vicksburg, but in the latitude of that city it was held with a firm grip by the Confederacy. 

To relieve this stric- 
ture was the object of 
the movements which 
were now begun by 
General Grant. That 
officer first proceeded 
from Jackson to La 
Grange. He and 
General Sherman now 
entered into coopera- 
tion in an effort against 
Vicksburg. An attempt 
was made to capture 
this place in December, 
but on the 20th of that 
month General Van 
Dorn succeeded in cut- 
ting Grant's line of 
supplies at Holly 
Springs, obliging the 
Union commander to 
fall-back. General 
Sherman dropped down 
the river from Memphis 
as far as Yazoo, wliere 
he landed and attacked 
the Confederate forts 
at Chickasaw Bayou. 

The result was exceedingly disastrous to the Federals, who lost in killed, wounded and 
prisoners more than three thousand men. The defeated army took to the fleet and drew 
back up the Mississippi. 

The year was destined to close with a great battle. Rosecrans had now been trans- 
ferred to the command of the Army of the Cumberiand. During the fall he collected a 
powerful anny at Nashville. General Bragg, on retiring from Kentucky, threw his force 
into Murfreesborough, only thirty miles distant from Nashville. Rosecrans moved against 
Iiis antagonist, and on the evening of the 30th of December came upon his lines at Ston« 
River, a short distance northwest from Murfreesborough. 




HEROISM OF COLONEL ROGERS. 



390 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



BATTLE OF MURFREESBOROUGH. 

Preparations were at once made on both sides for a general attack. Rosecrans planned 
to mass his force on the Confederate right, while Bragg's plan was the exact counterpart of 
that of the Federal General. Both massed to the left, so that when the battle began on 
the morning of the 31st the two armies were in a manner thrust by each other. The battle 
began with great fury and lasted until noonday. The Union right was shattered and driven 
from the field. The brunt of the struggle fell on General Tliomas, and he, too, was iorced 
back to another position ; but he held his place until RosL-crans was able to readjust his 
line of battle. It was only by the utmost exertions and heroism of the division of General 
William B. Hazen that the Federal anny was saved from a general rout. At nightfall more 
than seven thousand Union soldiers were missing from the ranks. 

During the night, however, Rosecrans prepared to renew the fight. On New Year's 
morning Bragg found his antaLT'inist finiil\ jiosted with shortened lines and defiant. That 




GKNKKAL AUGURS BKlGALlE PASSING THROUGH MAXASSAS GAP TO REINFORCE GENERAL BANKS. 

day was spent in indecisive actions. On the morning of the 2d of January-, 1863, the 
battle broke out anew. There was a terrific cannonade, and at three o'clock in the after- 
noon the Confederates drove the Union left across the river. This brought the assailants, 
however, within range of the Federal artillery'. Rosecrans rallied, and with a general 
advance along the whole line drove Bragg's forces from the field with a loss of several thou- 
sand men. During the night the Confederate commander drew off in the direction of 
TuHahoma. The losses on each side were about eleven thousand men. 

' With the coming of spring, 1863, active campaigns were undertaken in the East. 

Virginia was converted into a battle-field. The ball was opened in the valley of the Shenan- 
doah. General N. P. Banks, with a strong division, pressed his way forward, in March, as 
far as the town of Harrisonburg. On the other side General Thomas J. Jackson, known 
to history as Stonewall Jackson, was sent with a force of twenty thousand men to cross the 



EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 



391 



Blue Ridge and cut off Banks' retreat. At Front Royal the Confederates came upon a body 
of the Federals and routed them, capturing their guns and military stores. Banks, learning 
of the disaster, retreated down the valley, hotly pursued by Jackson, until the Federals 
put the Potomac between them and the enemy. 

This excursion to the North had put Jackson in peril. General Fremont at the head 
of a strong force of fresh troops was sent into the valley to intercept the Confederate retreat. 
Jackson fell back with the greatest celerity and reached Cross Keys before Fremont could 
attack him. Even then the engagement was indecisive and the Confederate general was 
able to fall upon the division of General Shields at Port Republic and defeat it before leaving 

the valley and rejoining the 
main army for the defence 
of Richmond. It was the 
first of those remarkable 
campaigns which demons- 
trated the military genius of 
Stonewall Jackson. 

ON TO RICHMOND. 
On the loth of March, 
1862, the great Army of the 
Potomac, numbering nearly 
two himdred thousand men, 
throughly disciplined and 
equipped, set out under 
General McClellan from the 
camps about Washington on 
a campaign against the Con- 
federate capital. It was the 
theory of the national govern- 
ment that the capture of 
Richmond was the principal 
object to be attained in the 
war. It was only after the 
severest reverses and the rise 
of a new group of com- 
manders that the more sen- 
sible plan of striking the 




GKNERAI< T. J. (stonewall) JACKSON. 

rather than their seat of government, was adopted instead 



Confederate armies, 

McClellan pressed forward to Manassas Junction, the Confederates falling back and 
forming new lines as he advanced. The Rappahannock was placed between the two great 
armies. At this stage of the campaign, however, McClellan changed his plan and embarked 
a hundred and twenty thousand of his men for Fortress Monroe with a view to proceeding 
from that point up the peninsula between the James and York Rivers. This change of 
base occupied the time to the 4th of April, when the Union anny left Fortress Monroe for 
Yorktown. The latter place was held by ten thousand men under General Magruder and 
yet with this small force McClellan's advance was stayed for a whole month. It was one 
of tlie militar)- peculiarities of the Union General to overestimate the forces of his enemy 
And to display undue caution in his presence. 



392 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



On the 4th of May, however, Yorktown was taken and the Federals pressed on to 
Williamsburg. There the Confederates made a second stand, but were defeated with con- 
siderable losses. Four days afterwards a third engagement occurred at a place called West 
Point, on the Mattapony, where the Confederates were again driven back. The way now 
lay open as far as the Chickahominy, within ten miles of Richmond. The Union army 
reached that stream without further resistance and crossed at a place called Bottom's Bridge. 

Meanwhile General Wool had, on the loth of May, led an expedition from Fortress 
Monroe and recaptured Norfolk from the Confederates. It was at this time that the great 

ironclad Virginia was blown r . . y^ — y — ^ r ^ M— -J^«A. — VCT — r r~5 ;7~ 

up to prevent her from fall- — ^^^S^J xr \ t^ X x. _i-. S / V/ 

ing into the hands of the ^ -««..■.... 

Federals. The James River 

was thus opened for the 

ingress of transports laden 

with supplies for the Army 

of the Potomac. 

After crossing the 
Chickahominy, McClellan 
advanced three miles in the 
direction of the Confederate 
capital. At that point on 
the 31st of May he was con- 
fronted by the Confederates 
in full force at a place called 
Fair Oaks, or Seven Pines. 
Here for two days the battle 
raged till at last the Con- 
federates were forced from 
the field. The Union vic- 
tory, howe\'er, was by no 
means decisive. The Con- 
federates lost nearly eight 
thousand in killed and 
wounded, while the Federal 
losses were in excess of five thousand. General Joseph E. Johnston, commander-in-chief 
of the Confederate armies, was severely wounded and his place was filled by the appoint- 
ment of General Robert E. Lee, a man whose niilitar}- genius from that time to the close 
of the war was ever conspicuous. He became indeed the chief stay of the Confederate 
cause until the day of its final collapse at Appomatto.x. 

DESPERATE FIGHTING BEFORE RICHMOND. 

The battle of Fair Oaks was so little decisive that McClellan detennined to change his 
base of supplies from the Wliite House, so-called, on the Pamunkey, to some suitable point 
on the James. The movement was one of great hazard. General Lee, discovering the 
operation of his antagonist, swooped down on the right wing of the Union anny at Oak 
Grove, where another hard battle was fought without decisive results. This was followed 
on the next day with a third dreadful engagement at Mechanicsville. In this conflict the 




MAP OF M'CI,lJtI.AN'S DEFENSIVE U.NES AND OPERATIONS OF THE ARMV 
OF THE POTOMAC. 



EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 



393 



Federals gained the field, but on the folloAsring morning Lee renewed the struggle at Gaines's 
Mill and came out victorious. On the 28th there was but little fighting. On the 29th 
McClellan was twice attacked, first at Savage's Station and later in the day in White Oak 
Swamp, but nothing decisive was achieved on either side. On the 30th was fought the 
desperate battle of Glendale, or Frazier's Farm. On that night the Federal army reached 
Malvern Hill, on the north bank of the James, twelve miles below Richmond. 

McClellan had thus receded about five miles in a circuitous direction from the Confed- 
erate capital. His position at Malvern Hill was strong, besides the Federal gunboats in the 

James now furnished pro- 



tection. General Lee, how- 
ever, determined to assault 
the Union position, and on 
the morning of the ist of 
July the whole Confederate 
army was pushed forward 
for the attack. Throughout 
the day the struggle for the 
possession of the high 
grounds was furious in the 
last degree. The battle 
lasted until nine o'clock at 
night, when Lee's shattered 
columns fell back exhausted. 
For seven days the roar of 
battle had continued almost 
without cessation. No such 
dreadful scenes had hitherto 
been witnessed on the 
American continent, and 
but rarely in the Old World. 
McClellan was very 




PART OF MARYLAND RAIDED BY THE CONFEDERATE ARMY. 



fifteen 
The losses of 



clearly victorious at Malvern Hill, and in the judgment of after times might have at 
once made a successful advance on Richmond. Lee's army was broken to fragments, 
and McClellan was greatly superior in numbers. That commander, however, chose as 
usual the less hazardous course. On the 2d of July he retired to Harrison's landing, 
a few miles down the river. The great campaign was really at an end. The Federal 
army had lost on the advance from Yorktown to Malvern Hill inclusive, fully 
thousand men and the capLure of Richmond seemed further off than ever. 
the Confederates had been heavier than those of the Union anny, but the moral efiect of 
victory remained with the South. 

General Lee, availing himself of his advantage and quickly recuperating from hift 
losses, immediately planned an invasion of Mar^'land and the capture of Washington city. 
The Union troops between Richmond and Washington numbered about fifty thousand and 
were under command of General John Pope. They were scattered at several points from 
Fredericksburg to Winchester and Harper's Ferr>'. Lee's advance was made at the middle 
of August and Pope began at once to concentrate his forces. On the 20th of the month he 
got his army to the north bank of the Rappahannock. While these movements were taking 




t: 

'4 



M 

» 

Hi 



o 

M 



EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 



395 



place General Banks, attempting to form a junction with Pope, was attacked by Stonewall 
Jackson at Cedar Mountain, where only desperate fighting saved the Federals from rout. 

Jackson now passed with his division on a flank movement, reached Manassas Junction 
and captured that place with its garrison and stores. Pope with great audacity threw his 
army between the two divisions of Confederates, hoping to crush Jackson before L,ee could 
come to the rescue. On the 28th and 29th of August there was terrible fighting on the old 
Bull Run battle-ground and at Centerville. At one time it appeared that Lee's army would 
be completely defeated; but Pope's reinforcements, a strong division under Fitz John Porter, 
did not reach the field in time and Pope was defeated. On the 31st a dreadful battle was 
fought at Chantilly, lasting all day. The Confederates were victorious, and Generals 
Stephens and Kearney were among the thousands who fell from the Union ranks in this 
struggle. Pope by night withdrew his shattered columns and took refuge in the defences at 
Washington. He immediately resigned his command, and his Anny of Virginia was con- 
solidated with the Army of the Potomac. The latter had now been recalled from the 
peninsula below Richmond, and General McClellan was placed in supreme command of all 
the divisions about Washington. Thus in dire disaster ended what is known as the Penin- 
sular Campaign. 

BATTLE OF ANTIETAM. 

General Lee, victorious over Pope, pressed on to the Potomac, crossed at the Point of 
Rocks and on the 6th of September captured Frederick. On the loth Hagerstown was taken, 

and on the 15th Stonewall Jackson, falling upon 
Harper's Ferry, frightened the commandant. Colonel 
Miles, into a surrender, by which the garrison, number- 
ing nearly twelve thousand became prisoners of war. 
On the previous day a hard battle had been fought at 
South Mountain in which the Federals were victorious. 
By these movements McClellan' s army was brought 
into the immediate rear of Lee, who on the night of 
the 14th fell back to Antietam Creek and took a strong 
position in the vicinity of Sharpsburg. 

Another great battle was now at hand. During 
the 15th of September there was much skirmishing; 
but night came without decisive results. These move- 
ments continued during the i6th. General Hooker, 
commanding the Federal right, was thrown across the 
E "^^5^"w=W Antietam, obtaining thereby a favorable position. 

GENERAL JOSEPH HOOKER. fj^g Confederate left, under Hood, was assailed and 

forced back in the direction of Sharpsburg. Then followed a cannonade until nightfall. 
On the morning of the 17th both annies were well posted. The Federals were 
strongest in numbers, but the Confederates had the advantage of an unfordable stream 
in their front. It was of great importance to McClellan that he should gain and hold 
the four stone bridges by which passage could be had to the other side. General Bum- 
side, who was ordered to capture the lower bridge and attack the division of A. P. Hill, 
was retarded in his movements; and it was only by terrible fighting that he succeeded 
in holding his position on the west bank of the Antietam. On the Union right Hooker 
fought a successful battle; but the success was gained by great losses, including that of 
General Mansfield. At the close of day the Union army had gained the west bank of the 




396 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



river, and the Confederates were worsted all along the line; but they still held nearly the 
•ame ground as in the morning, and the final struggle was reserved for the morrow. 

With the morrow, however, McClellan began to act on the defensive. It was anothei 
of those fatal delays for which the militarj' career of that General was unfortunately noted. 
During the i8th two strong divisions of Federals, under Generals Humphrey and Couch, 
arrived, and it was the intention of the Union commanders to renew the battle on the 19th ; 
but General Lee, wiser than his antagonist, availed himself of the delay, withdrew from his 
critical position and recrossed the Potomac into Virginia. The great conflict which had cost 
the Union army an aggregate of ten thousand men ended in a drawn battle, in which there 
was little to be praised except the heroism of the soldiery. To the Confederates, how- 
ever, the campaign had ended in defeat. The people of Maryland did not rise in behalf of 
the Confederate cause and General Lee was obliged to relinquish the invasion which had 
cost him in the short space of a month about twenty-five thousand men. 

PREPARATIONS FOR ANOTHER ADVANCE ON RICHMOND. 

After Antietam there was another lull and it was late in October before McClellan, fol- 
lowing the retreating Confederates, again entered Virginia. The detennination of the 

national Govenament, 
however, was not 
abated. The adminis- 
tration was pledged to 
the suppression of the 
Rebellion. That Re- 
bellion had now become 
a mighty war, strongly 
tending to revolution 
and a general change of 
American histor)'. It 
was the intention of the 
authorities to make 







another 
Richmond 
coming of 
the Union 



advance on 
before the 
winter and 
commander 



was ordered to prepare- 
for such a movement. There was, however, a 
discord of views between that General and the 
administration. The latter ol)jected to McClellan's 
plan of campaign by which Washington city would 
be again uncovered to a counter invasion of the 
Confederates. It was the desire of the Union 
General to establish his base of supplies at West 
Point, on the Pamunkey river ; but the President and Secretary of War insisted that 
he should choose Alexandria as his base of operations. From this point it was proposed to 
go forward by way of the Orange railroad, through Culpeper to Gordonsville and thence by 
the Virginia Central to its junction with the line reaching from Fredericksburjr to 
Richmond. 



STORMING THE BRIDGE AT ANTIETAM 



EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 397 

The sequel showed that the break between General McClellan and the authorities at 
Washington was fatal. The whole of October was wasted with delays and November was 
begun before that commander with an army of a hundred and twenty thousand men 
announced himself ready for the advance. On the 7 th of the month, when the movement 
was about to begin, he was superseded and his command transferred to General Bumside. 
Right or wrong, the President at last reached the decision that General McClellan was a 
man over-cautious and slow, too prudent and too much absorbed with preliminaries to lead 
great armies to victory. 

With the accession of Bumside the plan of the campaign was at once changed. The 
new commander would establish his base of supplies at the mouth of Aquia creek, fifty-five 
miles below Washington, and from that point move southward through Fredericksburg on 
his way to Richmond. But there was another great delay in preparation and General Lee 
had ample time to discover the purpose of his antagonist and to gather his army on the 
heights about Fredericksburg. The passage of the Union anny across the Rappahannock 
was not seriously resisted. The movement was effected with little loss or opposition and 
on the 1 2th of December Burnside established his lines on the right bank of the river, from 
Falmouth to a point opposite the mouth of the Massaponax, three miles below. 

BATTLE OF FREDERICKSBURG. 

Early on the 13th of December a general battle began on the Union left, where 
Franklin's division was met by that of Stonewall Jackson. At the beginning of the engage- 
men General Meade succeeded in breaking the Confederate line ; but the movement was not 
sustained ; the Confederates rallied and drove back the Federals with a loss of about three 
thousand men. Jackson's loss was almost as great and the result was indecisive. On the 
centre and right, however, the battle went wholly against Burnside. General Sumner's 
division was ordered against the Confederates on Marye's Hill and the charge was gallantly 
made ; but the attacking columns were mowed down by the thousand and hurled back 
while the defenders of the heights hardly lost a man. Time and again the assault was 
renewed, but always with the same disastrous result. The carnage did not end until dark- 
ness fell over the scene of conflict. 

General Burnside, rashly patriotic and almost out of his wits, would have renewed the 
battle, but the subordinate officers dissuaded him, and on the night of the 15th the whole 
army was quietly withdrawn to the left bank of the Rappahannock. The Union losses in 
the battle of Fredericksburg amounted in killed, wounded and prisoners to more than twelve 
thousand men. The Confederates lost something over five thousand. Of all the important 
movements of the war only that of Fredericksburg was undertaken with no probability of 
success. Under the plan of battle nothing could be reasonably expected but repulse, rout 
and ruin. Thus in gloom, disaster and humiliation ended the Virginia campaign of 1862. 




(398) 



DISTINGUISHBD CNION GENERALS. 



CHAPTER XXVII. 
DECLINE AND OVERTHROW OF THE CONFEDERACY. 




THE Civil War had continued with the same results 
through the year 1863, the revohition attempted by the 
Confederate leaders must have succeeded. Thus far the 
battle had, on the whole, gone in favor of the South. 
It appeared not improbable that the dissolution of the 
Union would be eflFected. It became the aim and deter- 
mination of the Confederate government to hold out 
against the superior resources of the North until they 
should compel the national authorities to yield the contest 
The war had now grown to unheard-of proportions. 
The Southern States cast all on the die, and drained every 
source of men and means for the support of their armies. 
The National Government also was greatly taxed, but the 
resources of the North were by no means exhausted. On the 2d of July, 1862, President 
Lincoln issued a call for three hundred thousand men. In the exciting times of Pope's 
retreat, he sent forth another call for three hundred thousand, and to this was soon added a 
requisition by draft for three hundred thousand more. Most of these demands were 
promptly met, and the discerning eye might already discover, at the beginning of 1863, 
that the national authority was destined to be reestablished by force of arms. 

On the first day of the new year President Lincoln issued the celebrated Emancipation 
Proclamation. The President had hitherto declared that he would save the Union with 
slavery if he could, but without it if he must. Meanwhile a growing animosity against the 
system of human bondage had spread among the people. The sentiment of abolition began 
to prevail among both the people and the soldier}-. It came to be regarded by the Govern- 
ment as a military necessity to strike a blow at the labor system of the South, and the step 
was finally taken with little hesitancy or opposition. The President had issued a prelimi- 
nary proclamation in September of 1862, in which he warned the people of the Southern 
States to lay down their arms and return to their allegiance, under the menace of the 
destruction of their peculiar institution. The warning was met with disdain, and the 
Emancipation Proclamation was accordingly issued. Thus after an existence of two 
hundred and forty-four years, African slavery in the United States was swept away. 

The beginning of the new year found General William T. Sherman in active move- 
ment on the Mississippi. That commander sent out an expedition early in January for the 
capture of Arkansas Post, on the Arkansas river. The Union forces reached their destina- 
tion on the loth of the month, and after a hard-fought battle gained a decisive victory. 
Arkansas Post was taken, with nearly five thousand prisoners. The expedition was then 
turned about for Vicksburg, in order to cooperate with General Grant in a second efifort to 
capture that stronghold and free the Mississippi river. 

U99. 



400 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



THE REDUCTION OF VICKSBURG. 

With this end in \aew the Union anny was collected at Memphis, and embarked on the 
Mississippi. A landing was first made at Yazoo, but the capture of Vicksburg fioni that 
direction was now regarded as impracticable. For three months General Grant beat about 
the half-frozen bayous, swamps and hills around Vicksburg, in the hope of gaining a posi- 
tion in the rear of the town. An attempt was made to cut a canal across the bend in the 
river, with a view to turning the channel, thus opening a passage for the Union gunboats; 
but a flood in the Mississippi washed away the works, and the enterprise ended in failure. 
Another canal was begun, but presently abandoned. Finally, in the beginning of April, it 
was determined at all hazards to run the fleet past the Vicksburg batteries. On the night 

of the 1 6th, the boats were made ready and 
silently dropped down the stream. It had 
been hoped that in the darkness they might 
pass unobserved ; but all of a sudden the 
guns burst forth from the Mississippi shore 
with terrible discharges of shot and shell, 
which exploded among the passing steamers; 
but they went by with comparatively little 
damage, and gained a safe position below 
the city. 

By this extraordinary manoeuvre Grant 
was now able to transfer his land forces 
down the right bank of the Mississippi and 
to form a junction with the fleet below 
•Vicksburg. This done, he crossed the river 
at Bruinsburg on the 30th of April, and on 
the following day fought with the Con- 
federates a victorious battle at Port Gibson. 
This success obliged the Confederates to 
evacuate Grand Gulf, and the Union army 
was thus free to move at will in the rear 
of Vicksburg. 

But there was much hazard in the 
situation. On the 12th of May another battle was fought at Raymond and the Con- 
federates were defeated. At this juncture General Joseph E. Johnston was on the 
march from Jackson to reinforce the forces at Vicksburg, which were commanded by 
General J. C. Pemberton. The right wing of the Union army, under Sherman and 
McPherson, fell in with Johnston on the 14th of the month, and a severe battle was 
fought, in which the Confederates were defeated. Grant was able to follow up his 
success with the capture of Jackson. The possession of the lines of communication 
between Vicksburg and the interior was secured by the Union General, and his antagonist 
was forced back towards Vicksburg. Pemberton, however, was not willing to be sunt up 
without a struggle for freedom. He accordingly moved out with the greater part of his 
forces, and on the i6th of the month fought with the Federal army the decisive t)attle of 
Champion Hill. This was followed by a second conflict at Black River. In both engage- 
ments the Federals were victorious, and the Confederate army was efiectually cooped up 
within the fortifications of Vicksburg. 




GENERAL WM. T. SHERMAN. 



EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 401 

That city was invested and besieged by the Union amiy. On the 19th of May General 
Grant attempted to carry the Confederate works by assault, but the attack was repulsed 
with severe losses. Three days afterwards another assault was made, but the Federal 
columns, though they gained some ground in different parts of the field, were hurled back 
with great destruction of life. The aggregate losses in the two attacks amounted to nearly 
three thousand men. 

The siege was now pressed with ever-increasing vigor. The Confederate garrison was 
presently placed on short rations. A condition of starvation ensued, but Pemberton held 
out for more than a month. It was not until the Fourth of July that he was obliged to 
surrender. By the act of capitulation the Confederate army, thirty thousand strong, became 
prisoners of war. Thousands of small arms, hundreds of cannon and vast quantities of 
ammunition and military stores were the additional fruits of this great Union victory, by 
which the national cause gained more and the Confederacy lost more than in any previous 
struggle of the war. It was a blow from which the South was never able to recover. 

General N. P. Banks had now superseded General Butler in the command of the 
department of the Gulf That officer set out early in January from Baton Rouge, and 
advanced with a strong force into Louisiana. He encountered the Confederates at a place 
called Bayou Teche and gained there a decisive victory. He then moved northward and 
began a siege of Fort Hudson, Mississippi. The beleaguered garrison, under General 
Gardner, made a brave defence, holding out until the 8th of July. When the news of the 
fall of Vicksburg reached Gardner, however, he capitulated, by which six thousand addi- 
tional Confederate soldiers became prisoners of war. It was the last stroke by which the 
Mississippi was freed from Confederate control and opened through its whole length to the 
operations of the Federal arm)'. The series of movements by which this work was accom- 
plished reflected the highest honor upon the militar)' genius of General Grant. After 
Vicksburg the attention and confidence of the North were turned to him as the leader who 
was destined to conduct the national annies to final triumph. 

DESTRUCTION WROUGHT BY CAVALRY RAIDS. 

At this period of the war cavalr>' raids became the order of the day. These move- 
ments were an important element of larger military operations. The possibility of them 
was first noted and their value demonstrated by Stonewall Jackson in his Shenandoah 
campaigns of 1862. Later in that year, after the battle of Antietam, General J. E. B. 
Stuart, commanding the cavalry of the army of Northern Virginia, made an excursion with 
eighteen hundred troopers into Pennsylvania. He captured Chambersburg, made a com- 
plete circuit of the Union army and returned in safety into Virginia. 

In the spring of 1863 Colonel Benjamin Grierson of the Sixth Illinois cavalry struck 
out with his command from La Grange, Tennessee, entered Mississippi, traversed the State 
to the east of Jackson, cut the railroads, destroyed great amounts of property, and after a 
rapid course of more than eight hundred miles through the enemy's country, gained the 
Mississippi at Baton Rouge. Both sections of the country along the border lines of the war 
were kept in the utmost agitation and alarm by these recurring raids. With the progress 
of the conflict such movements became more and more injurious. The commanders of 
them and the men whom they led learned to perfection the arts of destruction. The skill 
of the raiders was directed chiefly to the annihilation of railroads and telegraphs. This 
work became a new military art, and the destructive abilities of the raiders were such that 
miles of track and road-bed were destroyed in a single day. 

After Murfreesborough, General Rosecrans remained inactive for a season. Late in 
26 



402 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



the spring the command of Colonel A. B. Streight made a raid into Georgia, met the 
division of the Confederate General Forrest, was captured and sent to Libby prison. While 
the siege of Vicksburg was in progress Rosecrans resumed activities, and by a series of flank 
movements obliged General Bragg to retire from Tennessee into Georgia. The Union 
General followed, and planted himself at Chattanooga, on the left bank of the Tennessee. 

BATTLE OF CHICKAMAUGA. 

The Confederate authorities now sent forward large reinforcements to Bragg, including 
the divisions of Johnston from Mississippi and Longstreet from Virginia. On the 19th 
of September the Confederate commander turned upon the Federal anny at Cliickamauga 
Creek, in the northwest angle of Georgia, where was fought one of the great battles of the 
war. Night fell on the scene with the victory undecided. Under cover of the dark- 




A RAILROAD BATTERY OF THE RAIDERS. 

ness the Confederates, strongly reinforced by Longstreet, prepared for the renewal of the 
conflict. Longstreet took the Confederate left, opposite the Union right, held by General 
Cook. The battle was renewed on the morning of the 20th, and for a while the Federals 
held their ground with unflinching courage. After some hours of indecisive fighting, the 
national battle line was opened by General Wood, acting under mistaken orders. Long- 
street, seeing the mistake, thrust forward a heavy column into the gap, cut the Union army 
in two, and drove the shattered right wing in utter rout from tlie field. The brunt of the 
battle now fell on General Thomas, who held the Union left. That officer, with a desperate 
valor hardly surpassed in the annals of war, clung to his position until nightfall, and then 
under cover of darkness withdrew into Chattanooga, where the defeated army of Rosecrans 
found a precarious shelter. The Union losses in this dreadful battle amounted in killed, 
wounded and missing to nearly nineteen thousand and the Confederate loss was equally 
appalling. 



EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 



403 



Bragg pressed forward at once to the siege of Chattanooga. He succeeded in cutting 
the Federal lines of communication and for awhile the army of Rosecrans was threatened 
with total destruction. General Hooker came to the rescue with two army corps from the 
Army of the Potomac, opened the Tennessee River and brought a measure of relief to the 
besieged. But the great step towards recovery was the promotion of General Ulysses S. 
Grant to the chief command of all the Western annies. That commander, whose star now 
struggled out of the clouds of doubt and disparagement to shine with ever increasing 
brightness, at once assumed direction of affairs at Chattanooga. Nor was there ever a time 
in the course of the war when a change of commanders was immediately felt in so salutary 
a measure. Sherman also arrived at Chattanooga with his division and the Army of the 
Cumberland was able to assume the offensive against the Confederates. 

BATTLE OF LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN. 

The left wing of Bragg's army rested at this time on Lookout Mountain and the right 
on Missionary Ridge. The Confederate position was seemingly impregnable, but the Union 
commander did not hesitate to attack his antagonist. At this very time Bragg was maturing 
his plans for an assault 
on Chattanooga. On the 
20th of November he 
went so far as to notify 
General Grant to remove 
all non-combatants from 
the city as he was about 
to begin a bombardment. 
To this menace the Union 
General paid no attention. 
On the 23d of the month 
Hooker was sent with his 
corps across the river 
below Chattanooga to gain 
a footing at the bottom 
of Lookout Mountain. 
He was ordered to hold 
himself in readiness to make an assault with the support of Generals Gerry, Geary and 
Osterhaus. The Union line in front of Chattanooga was kept in a state of activity to 
distract the attention of the Confederates from the real point of attack. 

The movements of Hooker on the Union right were concealed by a fog that hung like 
a hood over the mountain. The assault began early in the morning and the Confederate 
rifle-pits along the foothills were successfully carried. The Union charge gathered enthusi- 
asm and momentum in its course. The assault was made up the steep sides of Lookout, 
but the Union troops went forward with irresistible energ)'. The mountain was not strongly 
defended by the Confederates, for the reason of its apparent inaccessibility. The Federal 
charge went to the summit and by two o'clock in the afternoon the national flag was waving 
above the clouds on the top of Lookout. The Confederates retreated down the eastern slope 
and across the intervening valleys towards Missionary Ridge. 

Bragg now perceived that he was to be the attacked instead of the attacking party. 
During the night of the 24th he concentrated his forces for the defence of his position. On 
the morning of the 25th Grant ordered Hooker to bear down the slopes of Lookout, cross 




A CHARGE AT MISSIONARY RIDGE. 



404 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



the Chattanooga and renew the battle on the Confederate left. General Sherman meanwhile 
had thrown a pontoon bridge across the Tennessee and gained a lodgment for his division 

on the northeastern declivity of 
Missionary Ridge. General 
Thomas, commanding the 
Union centre, lay on the southern 
and eastern slopes of Orchard 
Knob impatiently awaiting the 
result of Shennan's and Hooker's 
onsets. 

Hooker was delayed in his 
movements, but at two o'clock 
in the afternoon the signal of 
an artillery discharge from 
Orchard Knob announced the 
beginning of the assault along 
the whole line.* Instantl)' the 
Union column moved forward. 
The thrilling scenes of Lookout 
Mountain were reenacted on a 
more magnificent scale. General 
Grant had ordered the assaulting 
columns to take the lifle-pits at 
the foot of Missionar}' Ridge 
and then to pause and re-form 
for the principal charge ; but 
such was the elan of the army, 
such the impetuosity of its im- 
pact, that after carr\'ing the rifle- 
pits the column of its own 
motion pressed forward at full 
speed, clambered up the slopes 
and drove the Confederates in a 
disastrous rout from the summit 
of the Ridge. No more brilliant 
operation was witnessed during 
the war. 

In the following night General 
Brao-o- withdrew in the direction 
of Ringgold, Georgia. His army 
was greatly shattered by defeat 
The Confederate losses had 
reached in killed, wounded and 
prisoners fully ten thousand men. 
The Federals lost in the 




two 



* The reverberations of Grant's six shotted guns from Orchard Knob were the signal of the beginning of 
the end of the Confederacy. 



EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 



405 



battles of Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge more than five thousand, of whom 
seven hundred and fifty-seven were killed. The result was so decisive as to end the 
war in Tennessee until it was recklessly renewed by General Hood at Franklin and 
Nashville in the winter of 1864. 

Meanwhile General Bumside was making a strenuous effort to hold East Tennessee 
against the attempts of the Confederacy. On the ist of September he arrived at Knoxville 
and was cordially received by the people, most of whom in this section of the State had 
remained firm in their allegiance to the Union. After Chickamauga General Longstreet 
was sent into East Tennessee to suppress the Union party and prevent the restoration of the 
national authority. On his march towards Knoxville he captured several detachments of 
Federal troops and then began a siege of the town. On the 29th of November he made an 
attempt to carry Knoxville by assault, but was repulsed with heavy losses. General Grant 
looked with the greatest solicitude to the situation of affairs in East Tennessee, and as soon 
as Bragg retreated from Chattanooga sent General Sherman to the relief of Knoxville. As 
the latter drew near Longstreet prudently drew off into Virginia. 

INVASION OF MISSOURI. 

The Confederates had in the meantime resumed activities in Arkansas and southern 
Missouri. Early in 1863 strong forces under Generals Marmaduke and Price entered this 
region of country, 
and on the 8th of 
January attacked the 
city of Springfield. 
Their assault, how- 
ever, was repulsed 
with considerable 
losses to the assailants. 
Three days afterwards 
another battle was 
fought at the town of 
Hartsville, with like 
results. On the 26th 
of April Marmaduke 
made an attack on 
Cape Girardeau, on 
the Mississippi, but 
was for the third time 

lid O tl tl ^^^ ^^" JACKSON PLANNING THE BATTLE OF CHANCELLORSVILLE. 

of July General Holmes, with an anny of about eight thousand men, made an attack on 
Helena, Arkansas, but was defeated with a loss of one-fifth of his forces. It was on the 
13th of August in this vear that the town of Lawrence, Kansas, was sacked and burned 
and a hundred and fortv persons killed by a band of guerillas led by a chieftain called 
Quantrell. On the loth of September General Steele reached Little Rock, Arkansas, 
captured the city, and restored the national authority in the State. 

The greatest raid of the year, and perhaps of the war, was that of the Confederate 
General John Morgan. That officer, at the head of a cavalry force three thousand strong, 
started northward from the town of Sparta, Tennessee, for an invasion of Kentucky, 
Indiana and Ohio. While passing through the first-named State he gathered strength, so 




4o6 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



that his force on reaching the Ohio River was formidable. He crossed at a place called 
Brandenburg and began his march through Indiana to the north and east. The home- 
guards of that State turned out ; but the movements of Morgan were so rapid that it was 
difficult to check his progress. He was resisted seriously at Corydon, and a large force 
of Federals under General Hobson pressed hard after him as he made his way in a circuit 
through the southeastern part of the State. He crossed the Ohio line at the town of Harri- 
son and passed to the north of Cincinnati. By this time, however, State troops began to 
swarm around the raiders, and the latter attempted to regain the Ohio River. There they 
were confronted by gunboats and turned back. The forces of Morgan melted away under 
pressure and constant fighting, until he came to the town of New Lisbon, Ohio, where he 
was surrounded and captured by the brigade of General Shackelford. The Confederate 
leader was imprisoned in the Ohio penitentiary; but he succeeded in making his escape 
from that place, fled to Kentucky, and finally reached Richmond. 

ATTACK ON CHARLESTON AND DEATH OF JACKSON. 
In the meantime minor but important operations had been carried forward along the 
sea-coast. On the first day of 1863 General Marmaduke captured Galveston, Texas, thus 

securing for the Confederate States a much- 
needed port of entry. On the 7th of April 
Admiral Dupont, with a fleet of ironclads and 
monitors, made a descent on Charleston, but 
was driven back from the city. In the latter 
part of June the effort was renewed in con- 
junction with a land force under command of 
General O. A. Gilmore. The Federal army 
gained a lodgment on Folly and Morris 
islands, where batteries were planted bearing 
on Forts Sumter and Wagner. On the i8th 
of July an assault was made on Fort Wagner, 
but the Federals were repulsed with a loss 
of more than fifteen hundred men. Early in 
September the Confederates evacuated Wagner 
and Batteiy Gregg, whence they retired into 
Charleston. Gilmore, acting in conjunction 
with Admiral Dahlgren, was able to plant 
batteries within four miles of the city. The 
lower part of Charleston was bombarded and 
one side of Fort Sumter pounded into powder. 
The fort, however, coiild not be taken, 
and the only present gain to the Federals 
was the establishment of a blockade so 
complete as to seal up the port of Charleston. 

In the meantime the Army of the Potomac had had its share of vicissitude and battle. 
After the repulse at Fredericksburg, General Burnside resigned the command, and was 
superseded by General Joseph Hooker. The latter advanced in the after part of April, 
crossed the Rappahannock and the Rapidan and reached Chancellorsville. Here, on the 
evening of the 2d of May, he was attacked by the Army of Northern Virginia, under com- 
mand of Lee and Jackson. The latter general, at the head of twenty-five thousand meu, 




STONEWALI. JACKSON BEFOKK THE BA'n'LE. 



EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 



407 



succeeded by extraordinary daring in outflanking the Union array, and swept down like a 
thunder-blast upon the right wing, dashing everything to destruction as he came. But it 
was the last of Stonewall's battles. As night came on and ruin seemed to impend over the 
Federal army, the Confederate leader, in the confusion of the scene, received a volley from 




BATTLE OF CHANCEI.I.ORSVII,I,E. 



his own lines, and fell mortally wounded. He lingered a week, and died at Guinea Station, 
leaving a gap in the Confederate ranks never to be filled. 

The Union right wing was rallied and restored. On the morning of the 3d the Con- 
federates were checked in their career of victory. General Sedgwick, who had attempted 
•to reinforce Hooker at Fredericksburg, was attacked and driven across the Rappahannock. 



4o8 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



The Union army was forced into a comparatively small space between Chancellorsville and 
the river, where it remained in the utmost peril until the evening of the 5th, when Hooker 
succeeded in withdrawing his forces to the northern bank. The Union losses amounted to 
about seventeen thousand, while those of the Confederates were hardly five thousand in 
number. At no time during the war did the Union cause appear to a greater disadvantage 
in the East than after the disastrous battle of Chancellorsville. 

It was at this period that General Stoneman conducted his successful cavalry raid into 
Virginia. His movement was coincident with that of Hooker to Chancellorsville. On the 
29th of April, Stoneman, crossing the Rappahannock, tore up the Virginia Central railway 
and pushed ahead to the Chickahominy. He succeeded in cutting Lee's communications, 

swept around within a few 



miles of Richmond, and on 
the 8th of May recrossed 
the Rappahannock in safety. 
Another event serving to 
mitigate the Union disasters 
at Chancellorsville was the 
successful defence of Suffolk, 
on the Nansemond river, 
by General Peck against 
the siege conducted by 
General Longstreet. 
INVASION OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

The Confederates were 
greatly elated with their 
successes on the Rappahan- 
nock, and General Lee de- 
termined upon a counter- 
invasion of Mar>'land and 
Pennsylvania. In the first 
week of June he crossed the 
Potomac with his whole 
army and captured Hagers- 
town. On the 2 2d of the 
month he reached Chambers- 
burg, and then pressed on through Carlisle, in the direction of Harrisburg. The in- 
vasion produced the greatest excitement. The militia of Pennsylvania was hurriedly 
called out, and volunteers by the thousand poured in from other States. General Hooker 
threw forward the Army of the Potomac to confront his antagonist. It became evident that 
a great and decisive battle was at hand. 

General Lee concentrated his forces near the village of Gettysburg, capital of Adams- 
county, Pennsylvania, and the Union anny was likewise gathered on the highlands beyond 
the town. On the very eve of battle the command of the Federal forces was transferred 
from General Hooker to General George G. Meade — a dangerous experiment in the face of 
so over\vhelming a contingency. Meade drew up his army through the hill-country in the 
direction of Gettysburg. After two years of indecisive though bloody warfare, it now 




SEAT OF WAR FROM HARPER'S FERRY TO SUFFOLK, VA. 



EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 



409 



aeemed that the fate of the war, and possibly of the American republic, was to be staked 
on the issue of a single battle. 

On the morning of the ist of July the Union advance under Generals Reynolds and 
Beauford, moving out westward from Gettysburg, encountered the Confederate division of 
General A. P. Hill coming upon the road from Hagerstown, and the struggle began. In 
the afternoon both divisions were strongly reinforced, and a severe battle was fought for the 
possession of Seminary ridge. The Confederates were victorious, and the Union advance 
line was forced back from its position through the village to the high grounds on the south. 

Such was the initial passage of the battle. The Federal lines were now drawn up in a 
convex position reaching from the eminence called Round Top, where the left wing rested, 
around the crest of the ridges to Cemetery Hill, where the centre was posted. From this 
position the lines extended to Wolf Hill, 
on Rock creek. The position was well 
chosen and strong, and the whole Union 
army, with the exception of Sedgwick's 
corps, was brought forward into position 
during the night of the ist. The Con- 
federate forces ware likewise thrown into 
advantageous lines on Seminary ridge, and 
on the high grounds to the left of Rock 
creek. The semi-circle was about five 
miles in extent. The cavalry divisions, 
both Federal and Confederate, hung upon 
the flanks of the respective armies, doing 
eSective service, but hardly participating 
in the main conflicts of the centre. 



BAITLE OF GETTYSBURG. 

With the morning of July 2d the 
battle was begun by General lyongstreet, 
who commanded the Confederate right. 
That oflicer moved forward with impetu- 
osity and fell upon the Union left under 
General Sickles. The struggle for the 
possession of Great and Little Round 
Tops was terrific and lasted until six 
o'clock in the evening. The close of the 
day found those strong positions still in 
the hands of the Federals ; but the fig iting on 
Confederates. In the centre, meanwhile, a battle had 
part of the day, the contention being for the mastery 
the key to the Federal position. In this part of the 




BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG, JULY I, 2, 3, 1863. 

the whole had been favorable to the 
a battle had been fought 



been fought for the greater 
of Cemetery Hill which was 
field the national line, though 
hard pressed by the Confederates, preserved its integrity until nightfall. On the Union^ 
right the Confederate onset was mora successful, and that wing of the army commanded 
by General Slocum was to a considerable extent broken by the assaults of A. R 
Hill. At ten o'clock at night, however, when the fighting ceased, it was found that the 
two armies held virtually the same position as at the beginning of the battle— this, not- 



4IO 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



withstaading the fact that nearly forty thousand Union and Confederate dead and wounded 
•Iready bore evidence of the portentous character of the conflict. 

T'tie national forces were now on the defensive. The Confederates in order to succeed 
must advance. Otherwise the invasion would end in defeat and disaster. The Confeder- 
ate army must break through the opposing wall or be hurled back from the assault. Lee 
did not flinch from the great exigency before him. During the night both generals pre- 
pared for a renewal of the battle on the morrow. With the coming of morning, however, 
both seemed loath to begin. Doubtless both were well aware of the critical nature of the 
conflict. The whole nation, indeed, realized on the morning of the 3d of July that the 
crisis of the Civil War had been reached, and that perhaps before sunset the issue would be 
decided for or against the American Union. 

The forenoon of that tremendous day was spent in preparations. There was small and 
desultory fighting here and there but nothing decisive. At midday there was a lull along 

the whole line. Then 
burst forth the fiercfst 
cannonade ever known on 
the American continent 
For about two hours the 
hills and surrounding 
country were shaken with 
tlie thunders of more than 
two hundred heavy giins. 
The Confederate artillery 
was concentrated against 
the Union centre at 
Cemetery Hill, and this 
place became a scene of 
indescribable uproar and 
death. About two o'clock 
the Union batteries, imder 
the direction of General 
Hunt, drew back beyond 
the crest in order to cool 
the guns and also for 
economy of ammunition. 
The slacking of the fire was construed by the Confederates as signifying that their 
cannonade had been successful. Then came the crisis. The roar of the great guns 
in a measure ceased. A Confederate column numbering eighteen thousand men and 
about three-fourths of a mile in length, headed by the Virginians under Pickett, moved 
fofward in a desperate charge against the Union centre. 

The scene that ensued was doubtless the finest niilitan,- spectacle ever witnessed west 
-of the Atlantic; but the onset was in vain. The brave men who made it were mowed down 
with terrible slaughter. The head of the Confederate column succeeded in striking the 
Union line; but there it sank to the earth. Then the whole division was hurled back in 
ruin and rout. Victory hovered over tlie national anny and it only remained for Lee with 
his broken legions to turn back towards the Potomac. 

The losses on both sides were prodigious. That of the Confederates — though never 




REPULSING A CHARGE AT GETTYSBURG. 







(4") 



412 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

formally reported — was nearly thirty thousand. The Federals lost in killed, wounded and miss- 
ing twenty-three thousand and one hundred and eighty-six, making a total of tnore than fifty 
thousand men! It was strongly hoped by the Government that when the Confederates were 
driven back in retreat General Meade would be able by a counter attack to spring upon and 
destroy the forces of his antagonist before they could recross the river; but the condition of 
the Union army was so dreadful that the desired movement could not be undertaken. Gen- 
eral lyce withdrew his forces into Virginia and the Federals soon took up their old positions 
on the Potomac and the Rappahannock. 

RIOTS FOLLOWING THE CONSCRIPTION ACT. 

Notwithstanding the overwhelming success of the Union cause at Vicksburg and 
Gettysburg, the national administration was pressed with mountains of difBculty. The war 
debt was piling up to infinity. As a matter of fact, the war must soon end or national 
bankruptcy ensue. The last call for volunteers had not been fully met and there were those 
in the North who, on account of political animosity rejoiced in the embarrassments of the 
Government and threw obstacles in the way of its success. The anti-war party becoming 
bold and open, denounced the measures of Congress and the military conduct of the war. 
On the 3d of March, 1863, the Conscription Act was passed by Congress and two months 
afterwards the President ordered a general draft of three hundred thousand men. All able- 
bodied citizens between the ages of twenty and forty-five were subjected to the requisition. 

This Conscription Act added fuel to the fires of opposition. The Government was 
bitterly denounced. In many parts of the Border States the draft-officers were resisted. 
On the 13th of July, notwithstanding the recent successes of the Union armies and the pro- 
spective end of the war, a serious riot occurred in New York city. A vast mob rose in arms, 
attacked the offices of the provost-marshals, burned the Colored Orphan Asylum, drove back 
the police and killed about a hundred people, most of whom were negroes. For three days 
the mob had virtual possession of the city. Governor Seymour came down from Albany and 
made to the rioters a mild-mannered speech, promising that the draft should be suspended 
and advising the crowds to disperse. Little heed was given to this soft-toned admonition, 
and General Wool, commander of the militar}' district of New York, was obliged to take 
the matter in hand. Even he, with the forces at his disposal, was not able at first to put 
down the insurrection. At this juncture, however, some volunteer regiments came trooping 
home from Gettysburg. The Metropolitan police was organized for the assault and the 
insurgents were scattered with a strong hand. The stor\' of Vicksburg and Gettysburg 
threw a damper over these treasonable proceedings and acts of domestic violence ceased. 
Opposition to the war, however, was still rampant in many parts of the North and on the 
19th of August, 1863, President Lincoln was constrained to issue a proclamation suspending 
the writ of habeas corpus throughout the Union. 

The sequel showed the ineffectiveness of the conscription as a method of filling the 
Union annies. Only about fifty thousand men were added to the national forces by the 
draft. In other respects, however, the measure was salutan,'. It was seen that the Govern- 
ment would not hesitate, in the last resort, to draw upon the human resources of the coun- 
try by force. Volunteering and the employment of substitutes became the order of 
the day, and the ranks of the Union army were constantly strengthened by new 
recruits. Such, however, were the terrible losses in camp and field that in October of 1863 
the President found it necessary to issue another call for three hundred thousand men. By 
these active measures the Federal anny was not only maintained in its integrity, but con- 
stantly increased in volume and effectiveness. 



EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 



413 



It now became apparent that the Confederacy was weakening. With the approach of 
winter the disparity between the Federal and the Confederate forces began to be apparent to 
the whole world. The armies of the South already showed symptoms of exhaustion ; and 
the most rigorous conscription was necessary to fill the thinning and breaking ranks. It was 
on the 20th of June of this year that West Virginia, separated from the Old Dominion, was 
organized and admitted as the thirty-fifth State in the Union. 

RAIDS OF GENERAL FORREST. 

The Union Generals waited anxiously for the spring of 1864. Military operations with 
the opening of the season were first begun in the West. Early in February General 
Shennan left Vicksburg with the purpose of destroying the railways of Eastern Mississippi. 
He advanced to Meridian, where on the 15th of the month he began the destruction of the 
tracks from Mobile to Corinth and from 
Vicksburg to Montgomery. This work was 
carried on with fearful rapidity for a distance 
of a hundred and fifty miles. Bridges were 
burned, locomotives and cars destroyed and 
vast quantities of cotton and com given to 
the flames. Sherman had expected to be 
joined at Meridian by a Federal cavalry 
force under General Smith, but the latter 
officer was met on the advance by the 
Confederate cavalry' under Forrest and was 
driven back to Memphis. Sherman, dis- 
appointed by this failure, returned to Vicks- 
burg; while Forrest continued his raid north- 
ward into Tennessee. On the 24th of 
March he captured Union city and then 
pressed on to Paducah, Kentucky, where he 
attacked Fort Anderson, but was repulsed. 
Turning back into Tennessee he assaulted Fort Pillow, seventy miles north of Memphis. 
The place was defended by five hundred and sixty soldiers, about half of whom were 
negroes. Forrest demanding a surrender and being refused, carried the fort by storm ani 
nearly all the negro soldiers were slain. 

DISASTROUS RESULTS OF THE RED RIVER EXPEDITION. 

To the spring of 1864 belongs the story of the Red River Expedition of General Banks. 
The plan of this campaign embraced the movement of a strong land-force up Red River, 
supported by a fleet under Admiral Porter. The object was the capture of Shreveport, 
(Louisiana. The Federal army advanced in three divisions, under Generals Smith, Banks 
jand Steele. On the 14th of March Smith's division reached Fort de Russy, which was 
taken by assault On the i6th Alexandria was occupied by the Federals and on the 19th 
Natchitoches was captured. At this point the road departed from the river and the army 
and the gunboats were separated. The fleet proceeded up the stream towards Shreveport and 
the land-forces whirled off in a circuit to the left. 

On the 8th of April the Union advance approaching the town of Mansfield was sudder ly 
attacked by the Confederates in full force. The Federals were completely routed and were 
pursued as far as Pleasant Hill. Here a second battle was fought in which the hard fighting 




FORREST LEADING HIS ROUGH RIDERS. 



414 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



of the division of General Smith saved the army from complete rout Nearly three thou- 
sand men, twenty pieces of artillery and the supply train of the Federals were lost in these 
disastrous battles. 

Meanwhile the Confederates planted batteries on the banks of Red River to prevent 
the return of the fleet. When the flotilla dropped down as far as Alexandria no further 
IMTogress could be made on account of the low stage of the river. The gunboats could not 

pass the rapids. In this emergency 



M \P OF 

DALTON- 

AND\ ICIN'ITY 




Colonel Bailey, of Wisconsin, con- 
structed a dam across the river, rais- 
ing the water so that the vessels 
could be floated over. The whole 
expedition broke to pieces and the 
fragments rolled back into the 
Mississippi. General Steele hearing 
the news on his advance from Little 
pi « Buii»ra;yjy;v^jj^5, -J iso^f s *§*• ^VTV^ V7 Rock, withdrew in safety to his 
C I I \rr<J^^^^^^r^\l^ k K '-1^ "^/& n r > l station. The whole campaign appears 
*>,-^^_ ^ , ^ [1 n. , |.Q jiave been marked with misfor- 

tune, folly and incompetency of 
management. General Banks was 
relieved of his command and super- 
seded by General Canby. 

The Civil War had now de- 
veloped its own leaders. First and 
greatest of these was General Ulysses 
S. Grant. B)' degrees and through 
ever}- kind of hardship and con- 
tumely that silent and self-possessed 
commander had emerged from the 
obscurity which surrounded him at 
the beginning of the conflict and 
now stood forth in unequalled 
modesty as the leading figure of the 
time. After Vicksburg and Chatta- 
nooga nothing could stay his progress to the command-in-chief Congress responded to 
the spirit of the country by reviving the high grade of lieutenant-general and conferring 
it on Grant. This brought with it the appointment by the President on the 2d of 
March, 1864, to the command-in-chief of the land and naval forces of the United States. 
No fewer than seven hundred thousand Union soldiers were now to move at Grant's com-' 
mand. He took leave of his Western annies and repaired to Washington City, where he 
received his commission at the hands of the President. 

SHERMAN'S MARCH TO THE SEA. 

Now it was that the grand strategy of the war began to appear. Two great campaigns 
■were planned for the year. The Army of the Potomac, under immediate command of 
Meade and the General-in-chief, was to advance on Richmond, still defended by the army 
of Northeni Virginia, under Lee. General Shennan commanding the army at Chattanooga, 



KPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 



41S 



numbering a hundred thousand men, was to march against Atlanta, which was defended bv 

the Confederates under General Johnston. To these two great movements all other military 

operations were subordinated. Grant sent his orders to Sherman for the grand beginning 

which was destined to end the ,^ 

war and the ist of May, 1864, 

was fixed as the date of the 

advance. 




("HllMi^W '^^ JH^^lSr HOI! \ """^^^ ' '^ Promptly on the 7th of that 

\^ f|f1HM.^»,,/|^^WBli ^^Kff' '^"^^^fck"^ month General Sherman moved out 

of Chattanooga. At Dalton he was 
met by Johnston with a Confederate 
army sixty thousand strong. Sherman 
by manceuvring and fighting suc- 
ceeded in turning the Confederate 
flank and obliged his antagonist to 
fall back to Resaca. At this place 
on the 14th and 15th of May two hard 
battles were fought in which the Union army was victorious. The Confederates retreated 
by way of Calhoun and Kingston to Dallas. At the latter place Johnston made a second 
stand. On the 28th of May he was attacked, outnumbered, outflanked and compelled to 
fell back to Lost Mountain.' From this position he was forced in like manner, on the ijtb 
of June, after three days of desultory- fighting. 



DEATH OF GENERAL POLK. 



4i6 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



Johnston made his next stand at Great and Little Kenesaw Mountains. Here a line 
was formed and on the 2 ad of June General Hood fiercely assaulted the Union centre, but 
was repulsed with heavy losses. Five days afterwards Sherman made an assault with great 
audacity and attempted to carry Kenesaw by storm, but he was hurled back with a loss of 
nearly three thousand men. The Union commander, however, at once resumed his former 
tactics, outflanked his antagonist and on the 3d of July drove him across the Chattahoo- 
chee. A week later the whole Confederate army was crowded back within the defences of 
Atlanta. 

Then followed the siege of that city. Atlanta was, after Richmond, the most impor- 
tant seat of power within the limits of the Confederacy. Here were located the machine 
shops, foundries, car works and depots of supplies upon the possession of which the Con- 
federate cause so much depended. The government at Richmond now became deeply dis- 
satisfied with the military policy of 
General Joseph E. Johnston. That 
cautious and skilful commander had 
adopted the Fabian policy of falling 
back before the superior forces of 
Sherman and of conserving as much 
as possible the energies of his army. 
This method, however, displeased 
President Davis and when the siege 
of Atlanta was begun Johnston was 
deposed from command and was suc- 
ceeded by the rash but daring General 
J. B. Hood. The opinion prevailed 
that the latter would fight at what- 
ever hazard and this view of his 
military character was borne out by 
the facts. On the 20th, 2 2d and 28th 
of Jul}' he made three successive 
and desperate assaults en the Union 
lines around Atlanta ; but in each 
engagement the Confederates were 
repulsed with dreadful losses. It was in the beginning of the second of these battles 
that the brave General James B. McPherson, the bosom friend of Generals Grant and 
Sherman and the pride of the Union army, was killed while reconnoitering the Confederate 
lines. In the three battles just referred to Hood lost more men than Johnston had lost in 
all his masterly retreating and fighting between Chattanooga and Atlanta. 

Around the latter city Sherman daily tightened his grip. At last by an incautious 
movement Hood opened his line ; the Union commander thrust a column into the gap, and 
tlie immediate evacuation of Atlanta followed. On the 2d of September the city was 
occupied by Shennan's army. The campaign from Chattanooga up to this point of pro- 
gress had cost the Federals in killed, wounded and missing, fully thirty thousand men, and 
the Confederate losses were even greater. 

DEFEAT OF HOOD AND CAPTURE OF ATLANTA. 

By abandoning Atlanta Hood saved his army. He formed the plan of striking boldly 
northward into Tennessee, with the hope of compelling Sherman to evacuate Georgia ; but 




EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 



417 



the latter had no thought of relinquishing his ground ; he followed Hood north of the 
Chattahoochee, and then turned back to Atlanta. The Confederate commander continued 
his march through Northern Alabama, reached Florence, on the Tennessee, and pressed on 
towards Nashville. General Thomas, with the Army of the Cumberland, had in the mean- 
time been detached from Sherman's array and sent northward to confront Hood. General 
Schofield with the Federal forces in Tennessee fell back before the Confederates and took 
post at Franklin, eighteen miles distant from Nashville. Hood pressed on, and on the 30th 
of November attacked the Federal position. A hard battle was fought, and the Con- 
federates were held in check until Schofield succeeded during the night in crossing the 
river and making himself secure within the defences of Nashville. At that place General 
Thomas also concentrated his forces and a line of intrenchments was drawn around the city 
on the south. 

Hood came on confident of victor^'. He began a siege by blockading the Cumberland, 
and there was general alann through the North lest Thomas might be pressed to the wall. 
That commander, however, on the 15th of December, moved out from his works, attacked 
the Confederate army and routed it with a loss in killed, wounded and prisoners, of fully 
twenty-five thousand men! For many days of freezing weather he pursued the disorganized 

Confederate forces, until the remnants found 

refuge in Alabama. Hood's division of the 
Confederate forces was ruined, and he him- 
self, with the misfortune of unsuccess, was 
relieved of his command. 

Meanwhile, on the 14th of November, 
General Sherman burned Atlanta and set out 
on his famous march to the sea. His army 
of veterans numbered sixty thousand men. 
The advance was begun with confidence, for 
Sherman expected the destruction of Hood's 
army in Tennessee. It was clear that the Con- 
federates had 110 adequate force with which 
to oppose him in front. He accordingly cut 
his communications with the North, abandoned his base of supplies, and struck out for 
the sea-coast, more than two hundred and fifty miles away. On leaving Atlanta, he was 
lost to sight in the forests of Georgia, but was followed by the unwavering faith of 
General Grant and of the people of the North. 

The Confederates were able to offer no further successful resistance. The Union army 
swept on through Macon and Milledgeville, crossed the Ogeechee, captured Gibson and 
Waynesborough, and on the loth of December arrived in the vicinity of Savannah. Three 
days afterwards Fort McAlister, below that city, was carried by the division of General 
Hazen. On the night of the 20th, General Hardee, the Confederate commandant, escaped 
from Savannah, and with fifteen thousand men made his way to Charleston. On the next 
morning Sherman entered the city, and on the 22d established there his headquarters. His 
total losses from Atlanta to the coast had been but five hundred and sixty-seven men. 
THE TRAIL OF DESTRUCTION AND SURRENDER OF CHARLESTON. 

The Union army remained in Savannah during the month of January, 1865. On the 
ist of February, General Sherman began his campaign against Columbia, the capital of 
South Carolina. To the Confederates the further progress of the Union anny through the 
27 




SHERMAN'S MARCH TO THE SEA, 1864. 



4i8 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATEvS. 



swamps and morasses of the State had seemed an impossibility; but the veteran legions 
were now thoroughly hardened to all fonns of exposure and trial, and their progress was 
little impeded. Alarm and terror pervaded the country. Governor Magrath summoned 
into the field every white man in the State between the ages of sixteen and sixty ; but the 
requisition was comparatively ineffectual. The Confederates formed a line of defence on 
the Salkehatchie, but were unable to prevent Sherman's progress. The river was crossed 
by the Federals on the nth of February, and Charleston and Augusta were cut off from 
Confederate support. On the 12th, the city of Orangeburg was taken by the seventeenth 
corps. Two davs afterwards the Federal army crossed the Congaree, on the high road to 

Columbia. Then followed the 
passage of the Broad and Saluda 
Rivers. On the 1 7th Mayor Good- 
win and a committee of the Com- 
mon Council of Columbia came 
out and surrendered the city. 

Hereupon General Hardee 
determined to abandon Charleston 
and to join Beauregard and John- 
ston in North Carolina. On the 
day of the capture of Columbia he 
detailed guards to destroy the ware- 
houses, stores of cotton and depots 
of the city. The station of the 
Northwestern Railroad, where 
magazines were stored, blew up 
with terrific violence, and two hun- 
dred people were buried in the 
ruins. Four squares in the best 
part of the city were laid in ashes. 
Hardee, with fourteen thousand 
men, escaped and made his way 
northward. On the next morning 
the national forces on James and 
Morris Islands learned of the evacua- 
tion, and before noon the stars and 
stripes were again raised over Forts Sumter, Ripley and Pinckney. Mayor Macbeth 
surrendered Charleston to a force which was sent over from Morris Island. As much 
as might be saved from the conflagration was rescued by citizens and Federal soldiers work- 
ing together. The principal arsenal and a storehouse of rice were preserv^ed and the 
contents of the latter distributed to the poor. Colonel Stewart L. Woodford, of New 
York, was appointed military governor of the city. 

At Columbia Sliennan gave orders for the destruction of all public property and then 
immediately renewed his march northward. His course was now in the direction of Char- 
lotte, North Carolina. The Federals swept on unopposed to Winnsborough, where a junc- 
tion was effected with the twentieth corps under Slocum. The march was continued to 
Fayetteville, where Shennan arrived and took possession on the nth of March. 

In the meantime a dashing cavalry battle had occurred between the forces of Generals 




GENERAL JOSErH E. JOHNSTON. 



EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 



4.19 



Hampton and Kilpatrick. The former officer had been directed to defend the rear of 
Hardee's column on its retreat from Charleston. In the first engagement Kilpatrick suc- 
ceeded in cutting through the Confederate lines, but on the next morning he was in turn 
attacked in his quarters, routed and reduced to the straits of making his escape on foot into 
a swamp. He succeeded at length, however, in rallying his forces, returning to the conflict 
and scattering the Confederates in a brilliant charge. Hampton then rallied, but Kil- 
patrick was able to hold his ground until reinforced by a part of the twentieth corps when 
the Confederates were finally repulsed. Kilpatrick reached Fayetteville without further 
attack and joined the other divisions of the army. 

CLOSING BATTLES OF THE WAR. 

The destruction of Hood in Tennessee was the signal for a reaction in favor of General 
Joseph E. Johnston. That officer was recalled to the command. His influence now began 
to be felt in front of Sherman. The Union advance was rendered more difficult by the 
vigilance of the Confederate General. At 
Averasborough, a short distance north of 
Fayetteville, Hardee made a stand, but was 
repulsed with considerable loss. On the 
19th of March Sherman's advance was 
furiously assailed by the Confederates at 
Bentonville. For the hour it seemed that 
the Union army, after all its battles and 
victories, was in danger of defeat, but the 
brilliant fighting of the division of General 
Jeff"erson C. Davis saved the day, and on the 
twenty-first of the month Shennan entered 
Goldsborough unopposed. Here he was re- 
inforced by the division of Schofield, from 
New Berae, and that of Terrv', from Wil- 
mington. 

The Federal army now set out for Raleigh, 
and reached that city on the 13th of April. 
This was the end of the great march, and 
here General Sherman met his antagonist, 
and entered into negotiations for the surrender 
of the Confederate army. Lee had already 
surrendered to Grant at Appomattox. Sherman agreed with Johnston, most unfortunately, 
to discuss the terms of a general settlement of civil affairs in the South, but these negotiations 
were suddenly cut off by dispatches from the Government at Washington and by the arrival 
of General Grant, who was directed to grant to Johnston the same terms already conceded, 
to Lee. This was accordingly done, and the Confederate army was surrendered on the 26th 
of April. 

While these decisive events were taking place in Carolina the great cavalry raid of 
General Stoneman was in progress. About the middle of March that officer left Knoxville 
with six thousand men, crossed the mountains, and captured Wilkesborough. He then 
crossed the Yadkin, and turning to the north traversed the western end of North Carolina. 
He entered Virginia, destroyed the railway at Wytheville, and as far as within four mile* 




ADMIRAL DAVrD G. FARRAGUT. 



420 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



of Lynchburg. Christiansburg was captured, and other railway tracks destroyed for a 
distance of ninety miles. The expedition turned thence to Jacksonville ; thence south- 
ward to the North Carolina Railway between Danville and Greensborough. This track 
also was destroyed and the factories at Salem burned. Stoneman then captured Salisbury 
and the great Confederate prison for Federal soldiers, but the prisoners were removed before 
the arrival of the Union cavaln,-. On the 19th of April the great bridge of the South 
Carolina Railway, spanning the Catawba river, was set on fire and destroyed. The Federals 
then concentrated at Dallas and the raid was at an end. Stoneman had taken during the 
campaign six thousand prisoners, forty-six pieces of artillery and immense quantities of 

small arms and munitions. 

FARRAGUT BEFORE MOBILE. 

Meanwhile, on the sea-coast events of great importance had occurred. Early in 
August, 1864, Admiral David G. Farragut made a descent with a powerful squadron upon 
Mobile. The harbor of that city was strongly defended by a Confederate fleet, by bat- 
teries on the shore and by the monster ironclad ram Tennessee. On the 5th of August, 

Farragut succeeded in 
running past Forts 
Gaines and Morgan. 
Once in the harbor with 
his fleet, he mounted to 
the maintop of his flag- 
ship, the H ar tford, 
where he was lashed to 
the rigging. From this 
high perch he gave his 
commands during the 
battle. One Union ship 
struck a torpedo and 
went to the bottom. 
The rest attacked and 
dispersed the Con 
federate squadron, but 
in the midst of success 
the ram Tennessee came 
down at full speed to strike and sink the Hartford. 
Then followed one of the fiercest conflicts ever known 
at sea. The Union ironclads closed around their black 
antagonist and battered her with their beaks and fifteen- 
inch bolts of iron until she surrendered. The harbor 
was cleared. On the 7th of August Fort Gaines was taken and on the 23d Fort Morgan 
capitulated. Mobile was thus effectually sealed up to the Confederates. 

Of like importance was the capture of Fort Fisher. This powerful fortress standing 
at the mouth of Cape Fear River commanded the entrance to Wilmington — the last seaport 
held by the Confederacy. In December, 1864, Admiral Porter was sent with the greatest 
American annament ever afloat to besiege and capture the fort General Butler accom- 
panied the expedition with a division of six thousand five hundred men. On the day 
before Christmas the bombardment of Fort Fisher was begun. General Weitzel was sent 




NAVAI, BATTLE IN MOBILE BAY. 



EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 421 

ashore to carry the place by storm, but coming near to the fort he decided that an assault 
could only end in the destruction of his army. This belief was shared by General Butler 
and the enterprise was abandoned. Admiral Porter, however, remained before the fort with 
his fleet, while the land forces under Butler returned to Fortress Monroe. 

The result of the expedition was considered humiliating by the national authority. 
Early in January of 1865 the same troops were sent back to Wilmington under General 
Terry. The siege was renewed by the combined ami)- and fleet, and on the 15th of the 
month Fort Fisher was taken by assault. It was the last seaport of the Confederates, and 
their outlet to the ocean and foreign nations was thus forever closed. 

In the meantime the control of Albemarle Sound had been recovered by a daring 
exploit of Lieutenant Gushing of the Federal navy. The sound was held by a tremendous 
Confederate iron ram called the Albemarle. Gushing gathered a band of volunteers and 
on the night of the 27th of October entered the Roanoke and approached the ram lying at 
anchor at Plymouth. He managed to draw alongside and with his own hands sank a ter- 
rible torpedo under the Confederate ship, exploded it and left the ram a ruin. All of the 
attacking party except Gushing and one other were either killed or taken in the adventure. 

At the outbreak of the war the Confederate Congress authorized the fitting out of 
privateers to prey upon the commerce of the United States. True, the independence of the 
Confederacy was not acknowledged by foreign nations and the Confederate cruisers were 
therefore not allowed to carry their prizes into neutral ports. The work of capture was 
thus of little direct benefit to the Confederacy, but of prodigious injury to the United States. 

DAMAGE INFLICTED BY THE PRIVATEERS. 

The first Confederate privateer was the Savannah ; but this ship was captured on the 
very day of her escape from Charleston. In June of 1861 the Sitniter, under command of 
Captain Raphael Semmes, ran the blockade of New Orleans, and for seven months wrought 
havoc with the merchant ships of the United States. In February of 1862 Semmes was 
chased into the harbor of Gibraltar and was obliged to save himself by selling his vessel 
and discharging his crew. Meanwhile in October, 1861, the Nashville escaped from 
Charleston, went on a cruise to England, and returned with a cargo worth $3,000,000. In 
March of 1863, this vessel was sunk by a Union ironclad in the mouth of the Savannah. 

The Federal blockade soon closed around the Confederate ports. It became more and 
more diflicult for privateers to break through and gain the freedom of the seas. The Con- 
federates now sought the shipyards of Great Britain, and in spite of all remonstrances were 
permitted to use that vantage ground for the building, the purchase and equipment of 
privateers. In the harbor of Liverpool the Florida was fitted out. In the summer of 
1862, this ship ran into Molbile Bay and in the following Januar>' escaped therefrom to 
destroy fifteen Union merchantmen. She was finally captured in the harbor of Bahia, 
Brazil, brought into Hampton Roads, and there by an accidental collision was sent to the 
bottom. 

Meanwhile, at the shipyards of Glasgow were built the Georgia, the Olusfee, the 
Shenandoah and the Chickamaicga. All these went to sea and made havoc with the com- 
merce of the United States. When Fort Fisher was taken the Chickamaiiga and another 
privateer called the Tallahassee were blown up by the Confederates. The Georgia had 
already been captured and the Shenandoah continued afloat until the end of the war. 

The most famous and destructive of all Confederate cruisers was the Alabama. Her 
commander was Raphael Semmes, who had lost the Sumter at Gibraltar. A majority of 
the crew of the Alabama were British subjects. Her armament was wholly British, and 



422 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



wheuevfc. the occasion required the British flag was carried ! During her career she destroyed 
sixt}'-six vessels, entailing a loss of ten millions of dollars to the merchant service of the 
United States ; but she never once entered a Confederate port. The difference between such 
work and piracy would be far to seek. 

In the summer of 1864 Semmes was followed to the harbor of Cherbourg, France, by 
Captain John A. Winslow, of the steamer Ktarsarge. Semmes was soon ordered by the 
French government to leave the port. On the 19th of June he sailed out and gave battle. 
Seven miles from shore the two ships closed, and after a desperate battle of an hour's dura- 




SINKING OF THE ALABAMA BY THE KEARSARGE. 

tion the Alabama was shattered and sunk. Semmes and a part of his officers and crew were 
picked up by the English yacht Greyhound, which had come out to witness the fight, 
and carried to Southampton where they were set at liberty ! 

CLOSING BATTLES OF THE WAR. 
We now turn to the critical and final campaigns of the Army of the Potomac and of 
those divisions of the Union forces which were associated with it. After Gettysburg, Lee 
withdrew into the Shenandoah valley, whither he was followed b>- the Union cavalry under 
General Gregg as far as Shepherdstown, where an advantage was gained over General 
Fitzhugh Lee with the cavalry of the Confederates. General Meade with the army of the 
Potomac entered Virginia and moved forward to Warrenton. The Blue Ridge was thus 



EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 423 

interposed between the two armies, and it was the hope of Meade to prevent the return of 
his antagonist to Richmond ; but Lee with his usual sagacity made a feint towards Manassas 
Gap and then by a rapid march gained Front Royal and Chester Gap, passed through 
and reached Culpeper. Meade took up his old position on the Rappahannock. 

A lull now followed during the summer of 1863. Both armies were greatly weakened 
by battle and the withdrawal of troops for campaigns in distant parts. Longstreet was 
detached from L,ee to assist Bragg and Howard and Slocum were detached from the Army 
of the Potomac. Active operations were not resumed until October, when both Generals 
assumed the offensive ; but Meade was after much manoeuvring obliged to post himself on 
the heights of Centreville. Lee rested on the Upper Rappahannock. And so came the 
winter of 1864. 

BATTLES OF THE WILDERNESS. 

With the following spring General Grant became commander-in-chief of the Union 
armies. He retained Meade in the immediate command of the Army of the Potomac, but 
made his own headquarters with that army during the remainder of the war. The campaign 
which was now to ensue was destined to be one of the most memorable of modern warfare. 
The forward movement of the Army of the Potomac was undertaken with the beginning of 
May. On the 3d of that month the national camp at Culpeper was broken up and the 
march on Richmond begun. On the first day Grant crossed the Rapidan and entered that 
countr)' of oak woods and thickets called the Wilderness, lying west of Chancellorsville. 
Here the Union army was confronted and attacked. Through the 5th, 6th and 7th of May 
the fighting continued incessantly with terrible losses on both sides, but with indecisive 
results. Lee retired within his intrenchments and Grant made a flank movement in the 
direction of Spottsylvania Courthouse. On the 8th .there was a lull, but from the morning 
of the 9th to the night of the 12th ensued one of the bloodiest struggles of the war. The 
Federals gained some ground and the division of General Ewell was captured. But the 
losses of Lee who fought on the defensive were less dreadful than those of his antagonist 

While this struggle of the Wilderness was going on, General Sheridan with the cavalry 
of the Army of Potomac had conducted a raid around Lee's army against Richmond. The 
movement was executed with all the audacity for which Sheridan had become famous. He 
crossed the North Anna, retook a large detachment of Union prisoners and on the loth of 
May, at Yellow Tavern, fought a victorious battle with the Confederate cavalry undei 
General J. E. B. Stuart, who was mortally wounded on the field. 

Grant now continued to move slowly by the left flank. He crossed the Pamunkey to 
Hanovertown and reached Cold Harbor, twelve miles northeast of Richmond. Here on the 
1st of June he attacked the Confederates and was repulsed with heavy loss. On the morn- 
ing of the 3d the assault was renewed and in the brief space of half an hour nearly ten 
thousand Union soldiers were killed or wounded before the Confederate intrenchments. The 
Federal repulse was complete, but the grim commander held his lines as firmly as ever and 
coutinued the campaign. 

Since the crossing of the Rapidan the Army of the Potomac, including the corps of 
Bumside, had now lost the enonnous aggregate of sixty thousand men. During the same 
period the Confederates had lost in killed, wounded and prisoners, about thirty-five thousand. 
Nevertheless, the fight was going against the Confederacy. The weight of the Union pres- 
sure was ever increased and the power of resistance was ever weakened. Grant was imper- 
turbable. After his unsuccess at Cold Harbor he determined to change his base to James River, 
with a view to the capture of Petersburg and the subsequent conquest of Richmond from this 
direction. 




DISTINGUISHED CONFEDERATE GENERAI,S. 



(424) 



EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 



425 



■ CoNFEDItRATE SETHEAT 

- Fhdkrai. A1 

- Roads 



BEFORE THE OUTPOSTS OF RICHMOND. 

In that part of the field General Butler had moved up with a strong division from 
Fortress Monroe. On the 5th of May that officer captured Bermuda Hundred and Cit> 
Point at the mouth of the Appomattox. He then advanced in the direction of Petersburg, 
but was met on the i6th by the corps of General Beauregard and was driven back to Ber- 
muda Hundred. There he entrenched himself and stood on the defensive. On the 15th 
of June General Grant effected a junction with Butler and again advanced against Peters- 
burg. On the 17 th and i8th the Confederate entrenchments about that city were several 
times assaulted, but could not be taken. Lee's army was hurried into the defences and by 
the end of June Petersburg was invested. 

Meanwhile, before moving from the Rapidan, General Grant had despatched Sigel into 
the Shenandoah Valley with a division of eight thousand men. On the 1 5tli of May that 
officer was met at New Market, fifty miles above Winchester, by the Confederate cavalry divi- 
sion of General Breckinridge. The Federals were routed and the command of the flying divi- 
sions was transferred to General Hunter. Breckinridge returned to Richmond, whereupon 
Hunter again advancing up the valley struck the Confederates at Piedmont and gained a signal 

victory. From this 
point he advanced with 
the cavalry of General 
Averill against Lynch- 
burgh, but in this 
adventure he got into 
such peril that he was 
obliged to retreat across 
the mountains into 
West Virginia. 

General Lee was 
FROM RICHMOND TO APPOMATTOX, 1865. now able to scnd Early' s 

command into the Shenandoah Valley with orders to press down to the Potomac, invade 
Maryland and threaten Washington City. The object of the campaign was to oblige 
Grant to loose his hold on Petersburg for the defence of the National capital. The 
situation indeed was sufficiently alarming. Early, with twenty thousand men, gained 
the Potomac and on the 5th of July crossed into Maryland. On the 9th he was confronted 
by the division of General Lew Wallace, on the Monocacy ; but the latter was able with 
the force at his command to do no more than hold the Confederates in check until Wash- 
ington and Baltimore could be put into a more defensible condition. Early came 
witlmi gunshot of both of these cities; but on the 12th of the month fell back and recrossed 
the Potomac. 

The Union command on the Shenandoah was now transferred from Hunter to Wright 
The latter pursued Early as far as Winchester, where on the 24th of July he fought with 
him a successful engagement. But Early turned upon his antagonist and the Union troops 
were driven back across the Potomac. Following up his advantage, the Confederate leader 
pressed on into Pennsylvania, burned Chambersburg and returned into Virginia with vast 
quantities of plunder. 

General Grant was greatly vexed with these successful raids of the Confederates. In 
the beginning of August he consolidated the Union divisions in the Shenandoah Valley and 
on the upper Potomac into a single army, and gave the command to General Philip H. 




426 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



oheridau. It was the destiny of this young and brilliant officer to rise above the chaos in 
the concluding scenes of the war and to contribute much by his daring and genius to tnc 
final success of the Union cause. 

BATTLE OF WINCHESTER. 

On the 19th of September Sheridan with an arm\- of about forty thousand men came 
upon Early at Winchester. A hard battle ensued in which the Confederates were decisively 
defeated. The Union General followed his antagonist, and on the 2 2d of the month again 
routed him at Fisher's Hill. Then came one of the saddest episodes of the war in which 
the fruitful Shenandoah Valley was, as a military measure, laid waste and ravaged. Grant 
ordered Sheridan to spare nothing 
from destruction that might any 
longer furnish the means of sub- 
sistence to the enemy. The 
ruinous work was fearfully well 
done and little was left worth 
fighting for between the Blue 
Rido-e and the Alleghanies. 

Early, maddened by this 
destruction and stung by his 
defeats, rallied his forces, 
gathered reinforcements and re- 
turned into the desolated valley. 
Sheridan at this juncture, hav- 
ing posted his army on Cedar 
Creek and feeling secure in the 
situation, went to Washington. 
Early seized the opportunity and 
on the 19th of October surprised 
the Union camp, captured most 
of the artillery and sent the 
army in rout and confusion 
toward Winchester. The pursuit 
was contini:ed as far as Middle- 
town. The Confederates believ- 
ing themselves completely 
triumphant paused to eat and 
rest. On the previous night, 
however, Sheridan returning from Washington reached Winchester, and at the time of the 
rout of his army was on his way to the front. While riding forward he heard the sound of 
battle, spurred on for twelve miles at full speed, met the panic-struck fugitives, rallied 
them at his call, turned upon the Confederates and gained one of the most signal victories 
of the war. Early's anny was disorganized and mined. It was the end of strife in the 
valley of the Shenandoah. 

Grant having thus cleared the horizon of Virginia and confident of the success d 
Sherman's expedition to the sea, now sat grimly down to the investment of Petersburg. 
All fall and winter long he pressed the siege with varying success. As early as the 30th 
-^ July, 1864, an attempt was made to carry the Confederate defences by assault. A mine 




GENERA!. 



H. SHERIDAN. 



EPOCPI OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 



427 



•was exploded under one of the forts, and a column sprang forward at full charge to gain the 
lines of Petersburg; but the attack failed, and that with serious losses. On the 1 8th of 
A ugust a division of the Union army succeeded in seizing the Weldon Railroad. The Con- 
federates made several courageous assaults to regain their lost ground, but were beaten back 
with losses of thousands on both sides. On the 26th of September, tlie Federals carried 
Battery Harrison, on the right bank of the James, and on the next day Paine' s brigade of 

colored soldiers carried 
a strong Confederate 
position on Spring 
Hill. On the 27th of 
October a bloody battle 
v/as fought on the 
Boydton road, south of 
Petersburg. 

CAPTURE OF PETERS- 
BURG. 

Both armies now 
rested for the winter. 
Not until the 27th of 
February, 1865, was 
the struggle renewed. 
On that day General 
Sheridan attacked the 
forces of Early at 
Wa\nesborough, d e - 
feated them, and then 
joined the commander- 
in-chief at Petersburg. 
During March, General 
Grant pressed the siege 
of that important posi- 
tion, gathered strong 
reinforcements, and 
waited impatiently for 
the opening of spring. 
On the ist of April 
the campaign begar» 
with a severe battle at 
Five Forks, on the 
Southside Railroad — 
a loss of six thousand 
the whole line in front of 
and the Confederate works were carried. The rim of iron and valor which 
Lee had so long maintained around the Confederate capital was shattered by the 
tremendous blow. On that night he with his army and the members of the Con- 
federate government fled from Richmond, and on the next morning that city, together 
with Petersburg, was entered by the Federal anny. The warehouses of the ill-fated 




SHERIDAN'S RIDE. 

en engagement in which the Confederates were defeated with 
prisoners. On the next day Grant ordered an assault along 
Petersburg, 



428 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



capital were fired by the retreating Confederates, and the better parts of the Southern 
metropolis was reduced to ruins. 

The final catastrophe of the Confederate cause was now not far away. All men per- 
ceived that the struggle could last but a few da\'s longer. General Lee retreated as rapid)* 
as possible to the southwest, in the 
hope of effecting a junction with 
ithe army of General Johnston, on 
its emergence from Carolina ; but 
that army was destined never to 
emerge. The 
Confederates 
from Peters- 
burg and Rich- 
mond joined 




to be stationed. 



each other at 
Amelia Court 
House, whither 
Lee had ordered 
his supply trains 
The officer hav- 



ing this duty in charge, however, 
foolishly mistook his orders and 
drove the train in the direction 
of Danville. Nearly one-half of 
the Confederate anny had to be 
dispersed through the country to 
gather supplies by foraging. The 
4th and 5th of April, days most 
precious to the sinking heart of 
Lee, were consumed with this 
delay. The heavy Federal columns 
pressed on in full and close 
pursuit. On the morning of 
the 6tli of April the greater 
part of the Union army was 
at Jettersville, on the Danville 
railroad, ready to strike the 
Confederates at Amelia. 
Sheridan was on the extreme left flank, and pressing forward in the direction of 
Deatonsville. Ord came up with his division by way of the Southside railroad to 
Burke's Station. Lee fell back to the west from Amelia Court House, and reached 



LEK'S ARMY ON THE RETREAT. 



EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 429 

Oeatonsville. Here, however, he found the vigilant Sheridan planted squarely in his 
course. The division of Ewell, six thousand strong, was flung against the Federal 
position, but was broken to pieces and captured in the charge. 

General Lee still hoped to make a detour to the west and south around the Federal 
left. By strenuous exertions he succeeded in gaining the Appomattox, at Fannville, 
crossed to the other side, and burned the bridges. He thus sought to interpose a con- 
siderable stream between himself and his pursuers; but the effort was in vain. Lee next 
made a desperate effort to hold the Lynchburgh railroad ; bat Sheridan was there before 
him. On the 7th of April the Confederates had their last slight success. But all hope of 
victory, or even escape, was soon blown out in despair. On that day Grant, from Fann- 
.-ille, addressed a note to the Confederate commander, expressing a desire that further 
sacrifice of life and waste of war might be avoided by a surrender. To this Lee replied 
declaring his desire for peace, but adding that the occasion for the surrender of the Army 
of Northern Virginia had not arrived. 

THE SURRENDER OF LEE. 

On the 8th of April the process of surrounding the Confederate army went vigorously 
forward. On the morning of the 9th, when it became known that the left wing of the 
Union army had secured the line of the Lynchburg railroad — when the wrecks of Long- 
,treet's veterans covering the retreat were confronted and driven back by Sheridan, the soul 
of the Confederate leader failed him. Seeing the utter uselessness of a further struggle, he 
sent to General Grant a note asking for a meeting preliminary to a surrender. 

The Union commander immediately complied with the request. At two o'clock on the 
afternoon of that day. Palm Sunday, April 9th, 1865, the two generals — two of the greatest 
of modern times — met each other in the parlor of William McLean, at Appomattox Court 
House. There the tenns of surrender were agreed upon. General Grant put his propo- 
sition in the fonn of a military' note, to which General Lee returned a fonnal answer. The 
note of the Union commander was as follows: 

Appomattox Court House, Va., April 9, 1865. 
General,— In accordance with the substance of my letter to you of the 8th instant, I propose to receive the 
surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia on the following terms, to wit : Rolls of all the oflScers and men to 
be made in duplicate; one copy to be given to an officer to be designated by me, the other to be retained by such 
other officer or officers as you may designate. The officers to give their individual paroles not to take up arms 
against the Government of the' United States until properly exchanged, and each company or regimental com- 
mander to sign a like parole for the men of their commands. The arms, artillery and public property to be 
parked and stacked, turned over to the officers appointed by me to receive them. This will not embrace the side- 
arms of the officers nor their private horses or baggage. This done, each officer and man will be allowed to return 
to his home, not to be disturbed by United States authority so long as they observe their paroles and the laws in 

force where they reside. 

U. S. Grant, Lieutenant-General. 

To this memorandu'.n Ge:icral Lee responded as follows : 

Headquarters Army of Northern Virginia, April 9, 1865. 
GHNERAL,— r received your letter of this date, containing the terms of the surrender of the Army of Northern 
Virginia, as proposed by you. As they are substantially the same as those expressed in your letter of the 8th 
'nstant, they are accepted. I will proceed to designate the proper officers to carry the stipulations into effect. 

R. E. Lee, General. 

After the capitulation of Lee's anny a general collapse rapidly followed throughout the 
States in rebellion. The destruction of the military power signified the overthrow of the 
government and the ultimate obliteration of all that had been done against the national 




•A 
Q 

H 
t6 
ai 
u 
m 

u, 
o 

to 

o 
a 

J5 

O 



a 
M 

H 

o 

g 



6J 
St 
k'( 



W 
W 



w3o; 



EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 



431 



authority. The surrender of Johnston to Sherman followed on the 26th of April, 
overthrow of their two great armies all reasonable Confederates foresaw the end. 
four dreadful years of bloodshed, deva- , ~. 



In the 

Aftei 



station and sorrow, the civil war had 
ended with the complete triumph of 
the Union cause. 
CAPTURE OF DAVIS. 
It now remained 
to reestablish the 
Federal authority 



%,. 



iSliilili'Niii!;!! 




iver the Soulherr* 
States. On the 
part of the Con- 
federates there was no serious 
effort to prolong resistance. Lee 
bade adieu to his army and retired 
with shattered fortunes to private 
life. Jefferson Davis and his cabinet 
made their escape from Richmond 
THK LAST MEETING OF the'confederate CABINET. (;q Dauvillc, aud there for a few 

days kept up a form of government. They then fled into North Carolina and were 
scattered. The ex-President, with a few friends, made his way mto Georgia, where he 



432 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

was captured near the village of Irwinville, on the loth of May, by a part of the command 
of General Wilson. Davis was at once taken as a captive to Fortress Monroe, and was kept 
in confinement for two years. He was then removed to Richmond, to be tried on a charge 
of treason, but the cause remained untried for about a year and a half, and was then dis- 
missed from court. It thus happened that the legal status of that error, fault or crime 
which the Confederate leaders had committed was never established in American juris- 
prudence, but left rather to dangle contentiously in the political sky of after times. 

In the autumn preceding the downfall of the Confederacy Lincoln had been rechosen 
President for a second term. As Vice-President, Andrew Johnson, of Tennessee, was 
elected in place of Hannibal Hamlin. The opposing Democratic candidates were General 
George B. McClellan and George H. Pendleton, of Ohio. The partisan fires were rekindled 
on ever}' hilltop, and the North became a scene of turmoil. The Democratic leaders were 
rampant in their denunciation of the methods upon which the war was conducted and the 
war itself. In the National convention of that party at Chicago a resolution was adopted 
declaring the war a failure and demanding a cessation of hostilities until a peaceable solution 
of the trouble might be reached. 

The effort to defeat Lincoln, however, could end only in confusion and failure. His 
majority was very heavy. Only the States of Kentucky, Delaware and New Jersey gave 
their electoral votes to McClellan. Meanwhile the people of Nevada had in accordance 
with an act of Congress prepared a State constitution, and on the 31st of October, 1864, 
that territory was admitted as the thirty-sixth member of the Union. 

Great were the financial embarrassments of the government during the progress of the 
Civil War. The organization of the anny and navy entailed enormous expenses which had 
to be met at a time when the credit of the United States had sunk to the lowest ebb. The 
price of silver and gold rose so rapidly that the redemption of bank-notes in coin soon 
became impossible. On the 30th of December, 1861, the banks of New York suspended 
specie payment, and this action was soon followed by all the banks of the country. The 
premium on gold and silver rose to such a figure that the transaction of public and private 
business on a basis of coin was no longer possible. 

FINANCIAL MEASURES TO MEET THE EXPENSES OF THE WAR. 

At this time Salmon P. Chase was Secretary of the Treasury. To his genius in large 
measure were due the various expedients which were adopted to uphold the National credit, 
and which were destined in the future to enter into not only the industrial conditions, but 
also the political issues of the United States. Old things passed rapidly away. As a tem- 
porary expedient the Secretary of the Treasury first sought relief by issuing Treasury 
Notes receivable as money and bearing interest at the rate of seven and three-tenths per 
cent. The expedient was successful, but the expenses of the government rose higher and 
higher, until by the beginning of 1862 more than a million of dollars dail\- was required to 
meet tlie outlay. 

Congress, on the recommendation of Secretary Chase, now made haste to provide an 
Internal Revenue. This was made up from two general sources: first, a tax on manu- 
factures, incomes and salaries; and second, a stamp-duty ovi all legal documents. The next 
step in the financial evolution was the issuing by the Treasury of a hundred and fifty 
millions of dollars in non-interest-bearing LEGAL Tender NOTES of the United States to 
be used as money. Such was the beginning of that famous currency which under the name 
of Greenbacks sustained the nation during the war, survived the shocks of the epoch and 



EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 433 

continued for a long time after the subsidence of the conflict to constitute one-half of the 
paper money used by the people of the United States. 

But the greenback currency, issued again and again as the emergencies multiplied, was 
aot of itself sufEcient. A third great measure recommended by the Secretary provided for 
the issuance and sale of United States Bonds. The first series of these, redeemable at 
any time after five years and under twenty years from date, was called the FivE-Twenty 
Bonds. The interest upon them was fixed at six per cent., payable semi-annually in gold. 
The event showed that the clause making the interest payable in gold rather than in the 
greenback currency tended to aggravate the disparity in the value of coin and paper money. 
The second series, called the Ten-forties, was next issued, being redeemable at any time 
after ten and under forty years from date. The interest on this series was fixed at five per 
cent, and both principal and interest were made payable ?« coin. Then came at a later 
period the issue of the Four Percents, and finally of the Three and a Hai,f Percents 
and Three Percents, into which the higher priced bonds were for the most part converted. 

THE NATIONAL BANK ACT. 

The old banks of the United States soon disappeared. It seemed necessary that the 
place of local banking institutions should be taken by something else of like character. An 
act was accordingly passed for the establishment of National Banks. The constitution 
of these was peculiar in the last degree. The new banks were born out of the exigency of 
the times and their anomalous character must be explained from the existing conditions. 
The National Bank Act of May, 1862, provided that the new banks might use National 
bonds as the basis of their currency instead of gold and silver. Each bank must purchase 
and deposit with the Treasurer of the United States the requisite amount of bonds and 
receive thereon ninety per cent, of the valuation of the bonds deposited in a National 
Currency, such currency to bear the name of the particular bank from which issued, but 
otherwise to be of a common type for the whole country. 

The new banks were rapidly organized in all the States under National authority. In 
a short time a mixed currency, composed about half and half of Greenbacks and National 
Bank bills, took the place of the old local paper money which had formerly constituted the 
bulk of the currency. Gold and silver soon disappeared from sight. All financial trans- 
actions swam henceforth for about seventeen years in an ocean of self-sustaining paper 
money. The precious metals became mere merchandise; but their fictitious connection 
with the National currency constituted a dangerous element of monetary speculation which 
the financial jobbers of the country were not slow to discover and use with fatal effect 
The currency of the National banks was furnished and the redemption of the same guaran- 
teed by the Treasury of the United States. By the various measures above described the 
means for prosecuting the Civil War were provided. At the end of the conflict the National 
debt proper had reached the astounding sum of nearly three thousand millions of dollars, 
and to this prodigious — almost incalculable — aggregate the exigencies of the war were add- 
ing more than two millions daily ! Had the war continued another year National bank- 
ruptcy must have ensued. 

On the 4th of March, 1865, Lincoln was inaugurated for his second term. The 
brief address which he delivered on the occasion was one of the most remarkable ever pro- 
duced by a great man in a trying ordeal. He sought by sympathetic utterances to call 
back to royalty the infatuated people of the Southern States, exhorting his countrymen, 
"with malice towards none, with charity for all," to go about the work of healing the 
Nation's wounds and restoring political and social fellowship throughout the Union. 

2S 



434 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 

At the time of his second inauguration the great Rebellion was in the throes of disso- 
lution. Within a month the military power of the Confederacy was broken. Three days 
after the evacuation of Richmond by Lee's army the President visited that city, conferred 
with the authorities and then returned to Washington; but in the strange vicissitude of 
things the tragedy of his own sad life had already entered its last act. On the evening of 
the 14th of April he attended Ford's Theatre with Mrs. Lincoln and a part}' of friends. 
As the play drew near its close a disreputable actor, named John Wilkes Booth, stole 
unnoticed into the President's box, levelled a pistol at his head from behind and shot him 
through the brain. Lincoln fell forward in his seat, was borne unconscious from the build- 
ing, lingered until the following morning and died. It was the greatest personal tragedy 
of modern times — the most atrocious and diabolical murder of histor}'. The assassin 
leaped out of the box upon the stage, escaped into the darkness, mounted a waiting horse 
and fled across the Long Bridge of the Potomac into Virginia. 

It was immediately perceived that a murderous conspiracy was on foot to destroy the 
Government by assassina- 
tion. In the same hour 
of the shooting of Lincoln 
another murderer named 
Louis Payne Powell burst 
into the bed-chamber of 
Secretary Seward, who 
had recently been disabled 
by an accident, sprang 
upon the couch of the 
sick man, stabbed him 
nigh unto death and made 
his escape into the night. 
The city was thrown into 
the wildest alarm and ex- 
citement. The telegraph 
flashed the news through- 
out the land and a tremor 
of rage ran through all hearts. Troops of cavalr>' and the police of Washington departed 
in all directions to hunt down the conspirators. On the 26th of April, Booth was found 
concealed in a bam south of Fredericksburg. He refused to surrender even when the barn 
was set on fire. The object was to drive him forth alive; but Sergeant Boston Corbett, 
gaining sight of the assassin through the wall of the building, shot him down and he was 
dragged forth to die. Powell was caught, convicted and hanged. The other conspirators 
— David E. Herrold and George A. Atzerott, together with Mrs. Mar>' E. Surratt, at whose 
house the plot was formed — were also condemned and executed. Michael O'Laughlin, Dr. 
Samuel A. Mudd and Samuel Arnold were condemned to imprisonment for life in the Dry 
Tortugas, and Edward Spangler for a term of six years. 

UNIVERSAL GRIEF OVER THE DEATH OF LINCOLN. 

Thus in darkness, but not in shame, ended the strange career of Abraham Lincoln. He 
was one of the most remarkable men of any age or country,' — a man in whom the qualities 
of genius and common sense were strangely mingled. He was prudent, far-sighted and 




vS.->I.NATK>N OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 



II 



EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 435 

resolute; thoughtful, calm and just; patient, tender-hearted and great. The manner of 
his death consecrated his memory. Thrown by murder from the high seat of power, he 
fell into the arms of the American people, who laid him down as tenderly as children lay 
their father on the couch of death. The funeral pageant was prepared on a scale never 
before equalled in the New World. From city to city in one vast procession the people fol- 
lowed his remains to their last resting place in Springfield. From all nations went up 
the CT}' of sympathy and shame — sympathy for his death, and shame for the dark crime thai 
caused it. 

It would appear that Lincoln fell in an inauspicious hour. The great Rebellion of the 
Southern States was tottering into oblivion; but the restoration of the Union remained to 
be effected. Who but Lincoln in such a crisis was fitted for such work ? His temper, 
after the surrender of Lee, showed clearly the trend of his thoughts and sympathies — his 
sincere desire for peace, his love for his countr\-men of all sections. 

The words of mercy were upon his Hps, 

Forgiveness in his heart and on his pen, 
When the vile murderer brought swift eclipse 

To thoughts of peace on earth, good- will towards men. 

The Old World and the New, from sea to sea, 

Uttered one voice of sympath}' and shame ! 
Sore heart, so stopped when it at last beat free ; 

Sad life, cut short just as its triumph came ! 

A deed accursed ! Strokes have been struck before 

By the assassin's hand, whereof men doubt 
If more of horror or disgrace they bore ; 

But thy foul crime, like Cain's, stands darkly out. 

Vile hand ! that branded n.urder on a strife, 

Whate'er its grounds, stoutly and nobly striven. 
And with the martyr's crown crownest a life 

With much to praise, little to be forgiven ! * 

The man of Europe might well be surprised at the slight disturbance in governmen>afi 
affairs produced by the assassination of Lincoln. The public credit was undisturbed. It 
was demonstrated that in one countr\' of the earth the Nation is the Government. 

ACCESSION OF ANDREW JOHNSON. 

The death of the President called Andrew Johnson to the chief magistracy. The 
latter on the day after the assassination took the oath, and at once assumed the duties of 
office. He was a native of North Carolina, born in Raleigh, on the 29th of December, 
1808. His boyhood was passed in obscurity, poverty and neglect. He had no advantages 
of education, and at the age of ten was apprenticed to a tailor. At eighteen he removed 
with his mother to Tennessee, and made his home at Greenville, in that State. Here he 
took in marriage an intelligent lady, who taught him to write and cipher. Here by native 
talent, will and strength he first earned the applause of his fellow-men. Here through toils 
and hardships he rose to distinction, and was elected to Congress. As Senator of the 
United States, in 1860-61, he opposed secession with all his vehemence, even after the 
legislature of Tennessee had declared that State out of the Union. Then on the 4th of 
March, 1862, he was appointed militan,- governor of Tennessee, and established himself at 
Nashville. He administered affairs from that place with all the vigor and passion of hia 
* From the London Punch, of May 6th, 1865. 




THE CLOSING SCENE OF THE WAR— GRAND MIUTARV PARADE IN WASHINGTON. 



(«6) 



EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 437 

nature. There was neither quailing nor the spirit of compromise. His life was imperilled, 
but he fed on danger and grew strong. In 1864 he was elected to the Vice-Presidency in 
place of Hannibal Hamlin. Now, by the tragic death of the President, he was called 
suddenly to the assumption of responsibilities almost as great as those which Lincoln had 
borne during the war. 

I In his first message to Congress, Johnson recommended a policy of extreme severity 
toward the civil and military leaders of the Confederacy. The merciful tones of Lincoln 
were no longer heard from the White House, and there were dread and quaking throughout 
the seceded States. The great questions entailed by the war were at once taken up. On 
the ist of February, 1865, a Constitutional Amendment was adopted by Congress, formally 
abolishing and forbidding human slavery in all the States and Territories of the Union. 
By the i8th of the following December the amendment had been ratified by the legislatures 
of twenty -seven States, and became a part of the Constitution. Thus was the Emancipa- 
tion Proclamation of Lincoln made legal by the representatives of the people and the people 
themselves, and thus were the logical results of the war incorporated forever in the funda- 
mental law of the land. 

THE AMNESTY PROCLAMATION. 

What should the Government do with the leaders of the late Rebellion ? On this 
question the voice of Lincoln was heard out of the grave. Following the policy of that 
martyr, President Johnson, on the 29th of May, 1865, issued the Amnesty Proclamation, 
providing a general pardon for all persons — except those specified in certain classes — who 
had participated in the organization and defense of the Confederacy. The condition of 
pardon was simply an oath of allegiance to the United States. The excepted persons might 
be pardoned on special application to the President. 

As soon as practicable the great armies were disbanded. General Grant hurried from 
the field and lent his aid and influence to the work. One of the most striking scenes ever 
witnessed was the great military parade and review at Washington City. It was the closing 
pageant of the war. Seventy-five thousand Union soldiers, including Sherman's veterans 
from Carolina, paraded the streets and passed the reviewing stand, where the President and 
the principal civil and military ofllicers of the United States occupied the platform. After 
this the soldiers as an organized force melted rapidly away, and were resolved into the 
citizenship out of which they sprang. 

By the end of the war the National debt had piled up mountains high. It went on 
increasing in proportions until the beginning of 1866. The yearly interest rose to the 
enormous sum of $133,000,000 in gold. The expenses of the Government had reached an 
aggregate of two hundred millions annually. The augmented revenues of the Nation, how- 
ever, and the energy of the financial management, proved sufficient to meet the enonnous 
outlay, and at last the debt began to be slowly diminished. On the 5th of December, 
1865, a resolution was adopted by the House of Representatives pledging the faith of the 
United States to the full payment of the National debt, both principal and interest. 

EXECUTION OF MAXIMILIAN. 

During the progress of the war the Government had been constantly menaced by the 
hostility of foreign Powers. Only Russia, of all the great govemmxcnts of Europe, had 
been at heart favorable to the Union cause. Great Britain from first to last sympathized 
with the Confederacy and hoped for the dismembennent of the American Republic. 
Napoleon III., Emperor of the French, sought to aid the Confederate States and to precipitate 
the downfall of the Union. In pursuance of this plan, he set up a French empire ia 



45^ 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE Ux\TTED STATES. 



Mexico. The condition of affairs in that countr\' favored his schemes. There was a 
Mexican revolution and civil war. A French array was sent to Mexico. An Imperial 
government was organized, and early in 1864 the Crown was offered to Maximilian, Arch- 
duke of Austria. The latter accepted, and repairing to Mexico set up his government with 
the aid of French and Austrian soldiers. 

^ The Mexican President Juarez, however, headed a counter-revolution against the foreign 
usurpation, and the Government of the United States sent a rebuke to France for hei 




EXECUTION OF MAXIMILIAN. 



violation of the Monroe Doctrine. 
Napoleon, becoming alarmed, 
withdrew his army. Ma.ximilian 
was overthrown and driven from 
the capital. He fled to Queretaro, where he was besieged and taken prisoner. On the 
13th of June, 1867, he was tried by court-martial and condemned to be shot. On the 19th 
he was led lo exectition. He met his fate like a hero. His death and the insanity of the 
Empret^. Carlotta awakened the commiseration of mankind. The scheme of Napoleoa 
collapsed and his hope of gaining a foothold in the New World and of "restoring the 
ascendancy of the Latin race" was brought to shame and contempt. 

The summer of 1865 was noted for the laying of the second Atlantic cable. The first 
line, laid in 1858, had failed after a few weeks of operation. Cyrus W. Field never aban- 
doned the enterprise, but held on persistently till fame and success came together. After 



EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 



439 



the steamer Great Eastern had proceeded twelve hundred miles on her way to America the 
second cable parted and was lost. The enterprise was renewed for the third time in July 
of 1866 and the work was successfully done. The lost cable was also recovered and that 
line completed. After twelve years of unremitting efforts Mr. Field received a gold medal 

from Congress and the 
5^ plaudits of all civilized 
nations. 

It was during the ad= 
ministration of Johnson 
that the Territories of the 
United States were given 
approximately their final 
forms. The vast domains 
west of the Mississippi 
were reduced to proper 
limits and organized for 
early admission into the 
Union. In March of 1861 
Dakota, destined after 
twenty-seven years to be- 
come two great States, 
was detached from Ne- 
braska on the north and 
given a political organi- 
zation. The Territory 
embraced an area of a 
hundred and fifty thousand 
square miles. Kansas 
had at last, on the 29th 
of Januar}', 1861, been ad- 
mitted into the Union 
under a constitution framed 
at Wyandotte. In Feb- 
ruary of 1863 Arizona, 
with an area of a hundred 
and thirteen thousand 
square miles, was separated 
from New Mexico on the 
west, and organized as an 
independent Territory. On 
the 3d of March in the 
same year Idaho was 
constructed out of por- 
tions of Dakota, Nebraska and Washington Territory. On the 26th of May, 1864, 
Montana, with an area of a hundred and thirty-six thousand square miles, was cut off 
from the eastern part of Idaho. On the ist of March, 1867, the Territory' of Nebraska, 
reduced to an area of seventy-six thousand square miles, was admitted into the Union as 




TRIUMPH OF FAITH AND GENIUS. 



440 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



the thirty-seventh State. On the 26th of July, 1868, Wyoming, with an area of ninety- 
eight thousand square miles, was organized out of portions of Dakota, Idaho and Utah. 

PURCHASE OF ALASKA. 
Meanwhile, in 1867, the far-off region of the northwestern extremity of our continent, 
known as Alaska, was purchased by the United States. Two years previously this country 
had been explored by 
'a corps of scientific men, -^j^ - 

fwith a view of estab- .■ ^,==r=^. 
lishing telegraphic com- 
munication between the 
Dnited States and Asia. 
Alaska was found to be 
by no means the worth- 
less country of popular 
belief. The coast fisher- 
ies, including the pro- 
duct of the seal islands, 
were found to be of ver^' 
great value and the pine 
and cedar forests were 
among the finest in the 
world. Negotiations for 
the purchase of the coun- 
try were opened with Russia by William H 
of March, 1867, the treaty was concluded 




THE GREAT EASTERN LAYING THE ATLANTIC CABLE. 



Seward, Secretary of State, and on the 30th 
by which for seven million two hundred 
thousand dollars Alaska was purchased by the United States, thus adding to our territories 
an area of five hundred and eighty thousand square miles and a population of twenty-nine 
thousand souls. 




CHAPTER XXVIII. 




PERIOD OF RECONSTRUCTION. 

1^ DUTY now devolved upon the Government to recon- 
struct the American Union. How to do it was the 
issue of the day. On that question a break soon 
appeared between the President and Congress. The 
former held that the ordinances of secession had 
been invalid and of no effect, and that the restoration 
of the Southern States to their place in the Union was 
a matter of executive authority and management. 
The President accordingly proceeded on the 9th of 
May, 1865, to issue a proclamation for the restora- 
tion of Virginia to her place in the Union. Twenty 
days afterwards he issued a second proclamation for 
the setting up of a provisional government in South Carolina, and at brief intervals for all 
the other States of the Confederacy. On the 24th of June he proclaimed the removal of 
all restrictions from commerce with the Southern States. On the 7th of September he 
completed the cycle of manifestoes by issuing a second Amnesty Proclamation, whereby all 
persons who had upheld the Confederate cause, except a few leaders, were unconditionally 
pardoned. 

Meanwhile Tennessee was reorganized, and in 1866 restored to her place in the Union. 
All the while, however, Congress, falling more and more into hostility with the President, 
pursued its own line of policy with regard to reconstruction. During the session of 1865-66 
a Committee of Fifteen was appointed to consider all questions relating to the reorganization 
of the Southern States. Soon afterwards the Civil Rights Bill was passed with a view to 
securing to the freedmen of the South full exercise of citizenship. This measure was vetoed 
by the President, but was immediately repassed by a two-thirds' Congressional majority-. 
This was the beginning of the open break between the two departments of the Gov- 
ernment. 

The summer of 1866 witnessed a call for a National Peace Convention to be held in 
Philadelphia on the 14th of August. The project appears to have originated in a sentiment 
of the President. The objects of the meeting were not clearly defined, but the immediate 
purpose was to get together the representatives from all parts of the country for a fraternal 
political meeting. To this extent the scheme was successful. At the appointed time dele- 
gates from all the States and Territories came together. President Johnson attended the 
Convention, and the meeting was not wanting in spirit; but it proved to be a factitious 
enthusiasm, springing from the effort of those who clung to the administration. 

Johnson in the next place sought to rally public opinion by a journey through the 
States. In the after part of summer he set out from Washington, taking with him General 
Grant, Admiral Farragut, the leading members of the Cabinet and a retinue of other celebri- 
ties. With these he departed for Chicago to be present at the laying of the comer-stone of 

(441) 



442 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

a monument to Senator Stephen A. Douglas. The party passed through Philadelphia, 
New York and Albany and after participating in the ceremonies at Chicago returned by way 
of St. Louis, Indianapolis, Louisville, Cincinnati and Pittsburg. At all the principal 
towns and cities through which he passed the President delivered addresses, which in some 
instances took the character of harangues in which he defended his own policy and 
denounced that of Congress. The result, however, was unfavorable to the chief actor, and 
in the following elections Congress was sustained by increased popular majorities. The 
stubborn nature of the President would not yield and the affairs of the administration 
came to a crisis. It began to appear that Johnson liad gone over to the Confederate 
party. Congress abandoned him and with him the milder principles of reconciliation 
which Lincoln had professed, and became relentlessly hostile towards the lately rebellious 
party of the South. 

AMENDMENTS TO THE CONSTITUTION. 

The Committee of Fifteen meanwhile brought forward their report and that report 
became the basis of the reconstruction of the Union. The terms were, first of all, that the 
people of any rebellious State should ratify by the legislature thereof the Fourteenth 
Amendment to the Constitution, which declared the citizenship of all persons born or 
naturalized in the United States. After tliat elections might be held and representatives to 
Congress chosen, with the full restoration of State autonomy. Meanwhile an act was passed 
forbidding the restriction of suffrage on the score of race or color in all the Territories of the 
United States. To all these measures the President opposed his veto ; but in every case 
his objection was overcome by the two-thirds' majority in Congress. 

The question at issue now began to clear. It was simply this, whether a civil or a 
military plan of reconstruction should be adopted for the lately rebellious States. The 
latter view gained the day, and it was determined in Congress that the military and suppres- 
sive method should be employed in the South, securing a prospective alliance politically 
between the Black Republicans of the old slave States and the White Republicans of the 
North. The Presidential policy favored the resurrection of the old white leadership of the 
South — a measure which would probably have been fatal to the ascendancy of the Repub- 
lican party in the government. 

On the 2d of March, 1867, an act was passed by Congress for the organization of the 
ten seceded States into five military districts, each district to be under control of a governor 
appointed by the President. The latter appointed the governors, but appealed to his 
Attorney-General and secured from that official an answer that most of the reconstruction 
acts of Congress were null and void. The President hereupon issued such orders to the 
military governors as virtually made their offices of no effect. The counsels in the govern- 
ment became more and more distracted ; but in course of time the States of Arkansas, 
Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, North Carolina and South Carolina were reconstructed 
and in June and July of 1868 were readmitted into the Union. In each case, however, 
the readniission was effected over the veto of the President. 

IMPEACHMENT TRIAL OF JOHNSON. 

Matters in the administration now became critical. A difficulty arose in the Cabinet, 
which led to the impeachment of the President. On the 21st of February, 1868, he notified 
Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War, of his dismissal from office. The act was regarded 
by Congress as not only unprecedented, but in violatiovi of law, and was made the basis of 
the measures that were adopted against the E.xecutive. On the 3d of March articles of 
impeachment were agreed to by the House of Representatives, and the cause against the 



EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 



443 



wanting 



President was remanded to the Senate for trial. Tlie proceedings began on the a3d of 
March and extended to the 26th of May, when the question was submitted to a vote of the 
Senators acting as judges, and Johnson was acquitted. His escape from an adverse verdict, 
however, was jx-rilously narrow. A two-thirds' majority was required to convict, and but 

single vote was 
to that re- 
sult. The trial was 
the most remarkable, 
and perhaps the 
most dangerous, 
which had ever dis- 
tracted, not to say 
disgraced, the his- 
tory' of the country. 

ELECTION OF GENERAL 
GRANT. 

After this event 
Johnson went on 
sullenly to the close 
of his administra- 
tion, but the time of 
another Presidential 
election was at hand, 
and General Ulysses 
S. Grant was named 
by the Republicans 
as their standard- 
bearer. On the 
Democratic side 
Horatio Seymour of 
New York was nomi- 
nated. The ques- 
tions dividing the 
people arose out of 
the issues of the 
Civil War. Should 
the measures of the 
recent Congress be 
upheld and carried 
into effect ? On that 
question Geueral 
Grant was elected 
by a large majority. 

The electoral votes of twenty-six States, amounting to two hundred and fourteen ballots, 

were cast in his favor, while his competitor received only the eighty votes of eleven States. 

Of the popular vote Grant received 3,013,188, against 2,703,600 for Seymour. The choice 

for tlie Vice-Prcsidencv fell on Schuyler Colfax, of Indiana. 




^^<y<//^^a.''^^^ 



444 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



The new President was a native of Point Pleasant, Ohio, where he was bom on the 
27th of April, 1822. His boyhood was uneventful, but not without promise. At seventeen 
he entered the United States Military Academy at West Point, and was graduated in 1843. 
He served with distinction in the Mexican War, in which he was promoted to a captaincy 
for gallantry in the field. After that conflict he became a merchant in St. l/ouis, but 
afterwards resided at Galena, Illinois. At the outbreak of the Civil War he was living ia 
obscurity, following the vocation of tanner and leather-merchant. Nor could any have 
foreseen the probability of his emergence to fame. His military career has been recited in 
the preceding pages. At the close of the war his reputation was very great, and during 
the difficulties between President Johnson and Congress the fame of Grant rose still higher 
in the estimation of his countrymen. At the Republican Convention in Chicago, on the 
2ist of May, 1868, he had no competitor ; he was unanimously nominated on the first ballot. 

Entering on his duties as President, the new Executive sent to the Senate the follow- 
ing nominations : For Secretary of State, Elihu B. Washburne, of Illinois ; for Secretary 
of the Treasury, Alexander T. Stewart, of New 
York ; for Secretary of the Interior, Jacob 
D. Cox, of Ohio ; for Secretarj^ of the Navy, 
Adolph E. Borie, of Pennsylvania ; for Secre- 
tary of War, John M. Schofield, of Illinois ; 
for Postmaster-General, John A. J. Cresswell, 
of Maryland ; for Attorney-General, E. R. 
Hoar, of Massachusetts. The nominations 
were at once confirmed, but it was soon dis- 
covered that Mr. Stewart, being an importer of 
foreign goods, was ineligible to a position in 
the Cabinet. George S. Boutwell, of Massa- 
chusetts, was accordingly appointed to the 
vacant position. Mr. Washburne also gave up 
his place to become Minister of the United 
States to France; the vacancy was filled by the appointment of Hamilton Fish, of New York. 

Now came the completion of the Pacific railway. The first division of that great trans- 
continental line extended from Omaha, Nebraska, to Ogden, Utah, a distance of a thousand 
and thirty-two miles. This span was known as the Union Pacific Railway. The western 
division, called the Central Pacific, stretched from Ogden to San Francisco, a distance of 
eight hundred and eighty-two miles. On the loth of May, 1869, the great work was com- 
pleted with appropriate ceremonies. 

The Civil War entailed the necessity for certain amendments to the Constitution of the 
United States. The first of these, known as the Fourteenth Amendment, extended the 
rights of citizenship to all persons bom or naturalized in the United States, and declared 
the validity of the public debt. Just before the expiration of Johnson's term in the Presi- 
dency, the Fifteenth Amendment was adopted, providing that the right of citizens of the 
United States to vote should not be denied or abridged on account of race, color or previous 
condition of servitude. This article received the sanction of three-fourths of the legisla- 
tures, and on the 30th of March, 1870, was proclaimed by the President as a part of the 
Constitution. 

BLACK FRIDAY. 

Great opportunities for frauds and speculations were furnished by the financial con- 
ditions now present in the country. The buying and selling of gold became a business. 




GENERAI, GRANT'S HOME IN GAI,EN.\, 1860. 



EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 445 

The art of manipulating the gold market was acquired to perfection, and the Gold Room in 
New York City became the scene of such audacious transactions as had never been known 
before. In the fall of 1 869 occurred the most extraordinary event of all. No other scheme 
of equal extent and audacity was ever concocted in the financial marts of the world. A 
conspiracy was laid under the leadership of Jay Gould and James Fisk, Jr. , to produce what 
is known as a corner in the gold market, and the success of the scheme was so considerable 
as to bring the business interests of the metropolis to the verge of ruin. The conspirators 
managed to advance the price of gold from about one hundred and thirty to one hundred 
and sixty-five, at which time the managers of the corner had virtual control of the market, 
and openly boasted that they would put up the price of gold to two hundred ! On the 24th 
of September, known as Black Friday, the crisis was broken by the action of the govern- 
ment. Mr. Boutwell unsealed the Treasury of the United States, poured the gold reserve 
on the heads of the gamblers, and forced down the price of their phantom gold twenty per 
cent, in less than as many minutes ! The speculators were blown away in an uproar, but 
managed by fraud and corruption to carry off with them more than eleven million dollars 
as the profits of their game ! 

At this time was completed the reconstruction of the Southern States. On the 24th 
of January, 1870, the Senators and Representatives of Virginia were readmitted to Con- 
gress. On the 23d of Februar)', like action was taken in the case of Mississippi; and on 
the 30th of March the work was completed by the read mission of Texas, last of the seceded 
States. After a period of nearly ten years, the people of all the States were again repre- 
sented in the councils of the nation. 

The vast work of taking and publishing the ninth census of the United States was 
completed in the years 1870-71. The results were of the most encouraging character. 
Notwithstanding the ravages of war, the last decade had been one of wonderful growth and 
progress. The population had increased from 31,433,000 to 38,587,000. The centre of 
population had moved westward to a point fifty miles east of Cincinnati. The National 
debt had been somewhat reduced as to the figures in which it was expressed, but perhaps 
not at all in its value; for the currency had raised in value more rapidly than the debt had 
fallen off. The products of the United States had reached an enormous aggregate; even 
the cotton crop of the Southern States had regained much of its importance in the markets 
of the world. The Union now embraced thirty-seven States and eleven Territories, and 
the latter were, as we have seen, rapidly approaching Statehood. 

President Grant was perhaps the least visionary of all the great Americans who have 
risen to distinction in our political history. In one particular he had a favorite project, and 
that was the annexation of Santo Domingo to the United States. He also sought to extend 
and amplify the relations, civil, social and commercial, between the American Republic 
and Mexico. His project for annexing Santo Domingo resulted in the appointment of a 
Board of Commissioners, composed of Senator Ben Wade, of Ohio, President Andrew D. 
White, of Cornell University, and Dr. Samuel Howe, of Massachusetts,— to visit Santo 
Domingo and report upon the desirability of annexation. The commissioners spent three 
months abroad, and reported in favor of the President's scheme. The matter was laid 
before Congress, but the opposition excited in that body was so great that the measure was 

defeated. 

SETTLEMENT OF THE ALABAMA CLAIMS. 

The time had now arrived when Great Britain was to be brought to the bar of justice 

for the wrongs which she had committed against the United States during the Civil War. 



44b PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

The account held against that countr)- by our Government was sufficiently serious. Thr 
gravamen of the charges was the connivance of England in fitting out, equipping and 
encouraging the Confedeiate cruisers which preyed upon our commerce during the greatei 
part of the war. The conduct of Great Britain was in plain violation of the law of nations. 
Time and again Mr. Seward remonstrated with the British authorities on account of theii 
conduct. Great Britain, however, in common with all the monarchies of Western Europe, 
sympathized with the Confederacy, and desired the destruction of the American Republic — 
a type of government most dangerous to themselves. 

After the war Great Britain became alarmed at her own conduct, and sought a settle- 
ment. In Febntar)^ of 1871 a Joint High Commission, composed of five British and five 
American statesmen, assembled at Washington City. The particular thing complained of 
by the United States was the so-called Alabama Claims, that is, claims arising from tht 
ravages committed by the Confederate privateer, the Alabama. The commissioners suc- 
ceeded in framing a treat}' known as the Treaty of Washington, wherein it was agreed tha» 
all claims of either nation should be submitted to a Board of Arbitration, to be appointee 
by friendly nations. The high court thus provided for met in Geneva, Switzerland, in thf 
summer of 1872. The cause of the two nations was impartially heard, and on the 14th of 
December was decided in favor of the United States. The verdict was that Great Britair 
for the wrong she had done should pay to the treasury of the American Governmeni 
15,500,000 dollars. 

It was at this epoch that the railroad enterprises of the United States were carried l<- 
the high-water mark of activity and success. In 1871 no less than seven thousand si.x huii 
dred and seventy miles of railroad were constructed. There is perhaps no other single fac» 
in the histor\' of the world which exhibits so marvellous a development of the physica 
resources of a nation. In 1830 there were but twenty-three miles of railway track in th«- 
New World; in 1840, two thousand eight hundred and eighteen miles; in 1850, nine thou 
sand and twenty -one miles; in i860, thirt}' thousand six himdred and thirt^'-five miles; ir 
1870, more than sixt}- thousand miles. In the single year of 1871 more miles of railwa> 
were built in the United States than Spain, whose navigators had discovered the New World, 
has built in her whole career! 

THE BURNING OF CHICAGO. 

The same year witnessed a calamity almost as vast as the enterprise just referred to wa.*- 
astonishing. The event in question was the burning of Chicago. On the evening of the 
8th of October a fire broke out in De Koven Street and was driven by a high wind into the 
lumber yards and wooden houses of the neighborhood. The conflagration spread with 
great rapidity across the south branch of the Chicago river and thence into the business 
parts of the city. All that night and the next day the deluge of fire rolled on, sprang 
across the main channel of the river into North Chicago and swept everj-thing away as far 
as Lincoln Park. The area burned over was two thousand one hundred acres, or three and 
a third square-miles! About two hundred lives were lost and property- destroyed to the value 
of two hundred millions of dollars. No such devastation by fire had been witnessed since the 
burning of Moscow. The ravaged district was the greatest ever swept over by fire in a city; 
the amount of propert}- was second in value, and the suffering occasioned third among the 
great conflagrations of the world. 

In the fall of 1822 the dispute between the United States and Great Britain relative co 
our northwestern boundar}' was settled by arbitration. The treaty of 1846 had defined 
that line as extending to the middle of the channel which separates the continent from 



EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 447 

Vancouver's Island and thence southerly through the middle of said channel and of Fuca's 
Straits to the Pacific. But what was " the middle of said channel " ? There were several 
channels, and the British Government claimed the Straits of Rosario as the true line. The 
contention of the United States was for the channel called the Canal de Haro. After a 
quarter of a century the question was finally referred for arbitration to William I., Emperor 
of Gennany. That monarch heard the cause and on the 21st of October, 1872, decided in 
flavor of the United States, thus denoting the Canal de Haro as the international boundary. 
President Grant was by education and habit a military man, a general of armies rather 
than a statesman. It was natural, from the conditions present at the epoch, that the military 
spirit should strongly express itself in the administration. Major-generals and brigadiers 
swarmed in the halls of Congress and thronged the White House. The President was not 
at all desirous of introducing militar}' methods into the government; but on the other hand 
he had no sympathy with political methods and knew nothing of the arts of the demagogue. 
As a natural result he fell back upon the manners and usages with which he was acquainted. 
This, however, did not injure his popularity. He retained his hold upon the people, and 
with the approach of the presidential election it was evident that he would be renominated 
by his party. 

TROUBLES ARISING FROM CARPET-BAG RULE. 

The political questions of the day were still those which had issued from the Civil War. 
The Congressional plan of reconstruction had been unfavorably received in the South and 
was attacked by the Democratic party. The raising of the Negro race to the full rank of 
citizenship with the right or suffrage had created bitter opposition. In the South the civil 
government had been disorganized, and the attempt to establish military' government in its 
stead virtually failed. The enmit}' of the Southern leaders and the greater part of the 
whites who had participated in the Rebellion was fanned to a flame by the presence of a 
governmental organization in which they did not, and would not, participate. A lawless 
secret society, called the Ku-Klux Klan spread through a greater part of the Southern 
States, its object being to harass and extinguish what were called the carpet-bag govern- 
ments. These had been in large part instituted by political adventurers from the North who 
had gone South at the close of the war with their politics and other fortunes in their 
carpet-bags / It was now discovered what the Northern statesmen had failed to apprehend, 
namely, that the freedmen of the South had, for the time, little or no capacity for self- 
government. 

Such were the questions which divided the people in the quadrennial election of 1872. 
General Grant was renominated by the Republicans. Henry Wilson, of Massachusetts, 
was chosen as the Vice-Presidential candidate in place of Mr. Colfax. On the Democratic 
side there was much confusion of counsels. It was foreseen that a leader of that party on 
the issue presented to the American people would have small show of success against the 
^eat Union captains of the Civil War. Meanwhile a large number of prominent Repub- 
icans, dissatisfied with the administration, formed a Liberal Republican party, and 
flominated for the presidency Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune. After 
«ome beating about, this nomination was accepted and ratified by the Democratic party, 
.ogether with the platform of the Liberal Republicans, which was anything else than 
Democratic in its character. Greeley had for more than thirty years been an acknowledged 
leader of public opinion in America. He had been the champion of human rights, 
advocate of progress, idealist, philanthropist, a second Franklin born out of due season. 
He had discussed with vehement energy and enthusiasm almost every question in wtiich. 



448 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



the people of the United States had any interest. Now at the age of sixty-one he was 
made the standard-bearer of a party of political extremes marvellously mixed. 

This strange candidate of a strange party went before the people and spoke on the 
questions involved in the contest; but everything was adverse to his prospects. His own 
utterances, his strange personality, his former bitter contentions with the Democratic party, 
and many other things were paraded against 
him. He was ovenvhelmingly defeated. 
Grant's majority was almost unprecedented 
in the political history of the country. Mr. 
Greeley, who had for the time relinquished 
the editorial management of the Tribune, 
returned to his duties ; but he went back a 
broken man, and died in less than a month 
after the election. With him ended the 
career of the greatest journalist which 
America had ever produced. 

Just after the presidential election, the 
city of Boston was visited with a conflagra- 
tion which but for the recent burning of 
Chicago would have been regarded as the 
greatest disaster of its kind ever known in 
the United States. On the evening of the 
9th of -November a fire broke out on the 
corner of Kingston and Summer streets, "^ 

from which nucleus it spread in a north- 
easterly direction, and continued to rage 
with unabated fury until the morning of the nth. 
ingf some of the most valuable blocks of buildings 




HORACE GREELEY. 



The best portion of the city, embrac- 
^ was laid in ashes. The burnt district 
covered an area of sixty-five acres. Fifteen lives were lost, and property to the value 
of eighty millions of dollars. 

THE MODOC INDIAN WAR. 

In the meantime a dreadful incident had occurred on the Pacific slope. In the spring 
of 1872, Superintendent Odneal undertook to remove the Modoc Indians from their lands 
on Lake Klamath, Oregon, to a new reservation. The Indians were already embittered 
against the Government on account of the mistreatment and robberi'='s to which they had 
been subjected by the National officers. At length in November of 1S72 a body of troops 
was sent to force the Modocs into compliance with the official order. They resisted, went 
on the warpath, and during the winter fixed themselves in an almost inaccessible region 
known as the Lava Beds. Here in the following spring they were surrounded. On the 
nth of April, 1873, six members of the Peace Commission went to a conference with the 
Modocs, hoping to prevail upon them to yield to the demands of the Government, and tt 
cease from hostilities. The Modocs dissembled, and in the midst of the conference sprang 
up and fired on the Commissioners. General Cauby and Dr. Thomas fell dead on the spot 
Mr. Meacham was shot and stabbed, but escaped with his life. The Modoc stronghold was 
then besieged and bombarded; but it was not until the ist of June that General Davis, 
with a force of regulars, was able to compel the Indians to surrender. Jack himself and 
several of his chiefs were tried by court-martial, and executed in the following October. 



EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 449 

The system of government instituted in the Southern States became more and more 
unsatisfactory. The best elements of Southern society were against it. The white Repub- 
licans, who for the most part had gone into the South after the war, were affiliated 
politically with the negroes. Against such a party the old Confederates had nothing but 
enmity and hatred. In 1873 a difficulty arose in Louisiana by which the State was thrown 
into turmoil. At the election of 1872, two sets of presidential electors had been chosen. 
There were two election boards. Two governors — William P. Kellogg and John McEnery 
— were elected and rival legislatures were set up. Two State governments were constituted 
and everj'thing was dual. 

The dispute was carried to the Federal government and the President decided in favor 
of Kellogg and his party. The rival government was dispatched, but in December of 1874 
the McEnery party revived, and Lieutenant-Governor Penn, who had been with McEnery, 
gained possession of the State capitol. Kellogg fled to the custom-house and appealed to 
the President for aid. The latter ordered a body of troops to be sent to New Orleans and 
issued a proclamation against the adherents of Penn. With the assembling of the legisla- 
ture, in December following, the difficulty broke out more violently than ever, and the 
insurgent party had to be put down by the military. 

THE CREDIT MOBILIER SCANDAL. 

Early in President Grant's second term occurred the Credit Mobilier investigation in 
Congress — a thing scandalous to national honor. The Credit Mobilier of America was a 
joint-stock company organized for the purpose of facilitating the construction of public 
works. Four years afterwards, namely, in 1867, a company which had been organized to 
build the Pacific Railroad purchased the charter of the Credit Mobilier and increased the 
capital to $3,750,000. The Railway Company sublet the work of building the Pacific 
railway under contract for the government to the Credit Mobilier organization, and that 
body was composed mostly of themselves / The railway depended largely upon subsidies to 
be granted by the government. It became, therefore, of the vastest importance to the 
managers that favorable legislation should continue until they had gathered the proceeds. 

It was necessar\' that the door which was thus opened into the treasur}' should not be 
closed. To prevent such possible obstruction the management resorted to wholesale cor- 
ruption. In 1872 a law-suit in Pennsylvania developed the startling fact that much of the 
stock of the Credit Mobilier ims oiviied by members of Congress ! The managers, under the 
leadership of Oakes Ames, of Massachusetts, had placed the stock-certificates of the Credit 
Mobilier in wholesale quantities to the credit of Representatives, Senators and other high 
officers of the government. The certificates cost the holders not a cent. In some instances 
the holders were not aware that they were the owners of any such stock until large dividends 
were declared and tendered to them as profits ! Not a few persons were thus enriched with- 
out the expenditure of a dollar. The suspicion flashed through the public mind that the 
holders of such stock had been corrupted, and that legislature favorable to the Pacific rail- 
way had been secured thereby. Many political fortunes were suddenly wrecked in the 
scandal, and public faith was greatly shaken in the representatives of the people. 

In the fall of 1873 a disastrous financial panic overtook the country. The alarm was 
given by the unexpected failure of the great Banking House of Jay Cooke and Company, 
of Philadelphia. Other failures followed in rapid succession. Depositors hurried to the 
banks and withdrew their funds. A sudden paralysis fell on every department of business 
and many months elapsed before confidence was sufficiently restored to bring about the 
usual transactions of trade. 
29 



45° 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



TRANS-CONTINENTAL RAILWAY LINES 

One of the results of this financial crisis was the sudden check given to the construc- 
tion of the Northern Pacific Railway. This great work had been undertaken by sub- 
sidies from Congress. Jay Cooke's Banking House made heavy loans to the Company and 
accepted the bonds of the Company as security. When the Credit Mobilier scandal was 
blown abroad, Congress suddenly shrank back, even from such encouragement as it might 
have properly given to the Northern Pacific enterprise. 

Work of construction on that line was suddenly arrested, not to be revived until after 
years of tedious delay. In 1875 the section of four hundred and fifty miles from Duluth to 
Bismarck, Dakota, was put into operation. The second span, one hundred and five miles 
iu length, between Kalama and Tacoma, in Washington, was completed next, and finally 
the whole line. Meanwhile railway capitalists had turned to the south, and the Texas and 
Pacific Railway was projected, from Shreve- 
port, Louisiana, and Texarkana, Arkansas, 
by way of El Paso, to San Diego, California, 
a distance from Shreveport of fifteen hun- 
dred and fourteen miles. This trans-con- 
tinental line was completed before the 
close of the eighth decade, and furnished 
the second through line of travel and com- 
merce between the old United States and 
the Pacific coast. 

On the 4th of March, 1875, an Enabling 
Act was passed by Congress authorizing the 
people of Colorado to prepare a State con- 
stitution. On the ist of July, 1876, the 
instrument thus provided for was ratified by 
the people. A month later the President 
issued his proclamation, and Colorado took 
her place as the Centennial State in the 
Union. The new commonwealth came with 
an area of a hundred and four thousand five 
hundred square miles, and a population of 
forty-two thousand. Public attention had 
first been drawn to Colorado by the discovery of gold in 1852. Silver mines were found 
soon afterwards, and in 1858-59 the first colony of miners was established on Clear Creek 
and in Gilpin County. Already before her admission as a State, Colorado had yielded from 
her treasures more than seventy millions of dollars in gold. Immigration became rapid ; 
Denver grew into an important city ; and the new State entered the Union under the 

most favorable auspices. 

DEATH'S HARVEST AMONG THE GREAT. 

By ihis epoch the great men whose character and genius had been developed in the 
times of the Civil War, began to drop rapidly from the ranks of the living. One of the 
most conspicuous of these personages was Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War under 
Lincoln, and more recently appointed Justice of the Supreme Court. He died on the 24th 
of December, 1869, only four days after his appointment to the Supreme Bench, nor has 
the manner or immediate occasion of his death ever been ascertained. On the 12th of 



1 



I 




CHARiES SUMNER 



EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 



451 



October, 1870, General Robert E. Lee, President of Washington and Lee University, passed 
away. In the same year General George H. Thomas and Admiral Farragut died. Li 1872 
William H. Seward, Professor Morse, Horace Greeley and General Meade were called from 
the scenes of their earthly labors. On the 7th of May, 1873, Chief Justice Chase fell under 
a stroke of paralysis, at the home of his daughter in New York city, and on the nth of 
March, 1874, Senator Charles Sumner, of Massachusetts, died at Washington. He was a 
native of Boston ; born in 181 1 ; liberally educated at Harvard College. He entered public 
life at the age of thirty-five and at thirty-nine succeeded Daniel Webster in the Senate of 
the United States — a position which he retained until the time of his death. On the 22d 
of November, 1875, Vice-president Henry Wilson died in Washington city. He, like 
Roger Sherman, had risen from the shoemaker's bench to the highest honors of his country. 
He possessed great abilities, true patriotism and many public and personal merits which will 
transmit his name to posterity. 

The Centennial of American Independence was now at hand. As the event drew near 
the people made ready to celebrate it with appropriate ceremonies. It was determined to 

hold in Philadelphia a great International Exposition 
of Arts and Industries, the exhibition to continue 
from the loth of May to the loth of November, 1876. 
An appropriation of a million five hundred thou- 
sand dollars was voted by Congress to promote 
the enterprise, and the sum was increased by contribu- 
tions from every State and Territory of the Union. 
The city of Philadelphia opened for the Exposition 
Fainnount Park, one of the largest and most 
beautiful in the world. A commission was con- 
stituted with General Joseph R. Hawley, of Con- 
necticut, as President ; Alfred T. Goshorn, of Ohio, 
as Director-general, and John L. Campbell, of 
Indiana, as Secretary. 

THE CENTENNIAL EXPOSITION. 
Under direction of this commission five princi- 
pal buildings were projected and brought to com- 
pletion by the spring of 1876. The largest struc- 
ture, called the Main Building, was eighteen hundred 
and seventy-six feet in length within the walls 
and four hundred and sixty-four feet wide, covering an area of more than twenty acres. 
The cost of the structure was $1,580,000 Second in importance was the Memorial Hall, 
or art gallery-, built of granite, iron and glass, and covering an area of seventeen 
thousand six hundred and fifty square feet. This was by far the most elegant and permanent 
of all the Centennial buildings. Machinen.- Hall, third of the great edifices, had the same 
form and appearance of the Main Building, but was less grand and beautiful. The 
ground floor covered an area of nearly thirteen acres. The cost of the structure was 
$542,000. Agricultural Hall occupied a space of a little more than ten acres, and was 
built at a cost of $260,000. Horticultural Hall was an edifice of the Moorish pattern, 
covering a space of one and three-fifths acres, costing about $300,000. To these five 
principal structures others of interest were added : the United States Government Build- 
ing; the Woman's Pavilion ; the Department of Public Comfort ; the Government 




JOSEPH R. HAWLEY. 



452 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATE3. 



Buildings of Foreign Nations; Modern Dwellings and Bazaars; School Houses, Restaurants 
and Model Factories. 

The reception of articles for the Exposition was begun as early as January-, 1876. A 
system of awards was adopted, and on the loth of May the inaugural ceremonies were held 
under direction of the Centennial Commission, President Grant making the opening address. 
The attention of the people was fully aroused to the importance of the event and the grounds 
were crowded from the first da)' with thousands and hundreds of thousands of visitors. The 
Exposition was perhaps the grandest and most interesting of its kind ever witnessed up to 
that year of histor}-. All summer long citizens and strangers from every clime poured into 
the spacious and beautiful park. Distinguished personages, among them Dom Pedro II. , 
Emperor of Brazil, came from abroad to gather instruction from the arts and industries of 
mankind. 

The Fourth of July, centennial anniversar)' of the great Declaration, was celebrated 
throughout the countr}'. In Philadelphia on that day about two hundred and fifty thousand 
strangers were present. The Declaration was read 
in Independence Square by Richard Henr}' Lee, 
grandson of him by whom the resolution to be free 
was first offered in Congress — read from the original 
tnanuscript. A National Ode was recited by the poet 
Baj'ard Taylor, and a Centennial Oration delivered 
by William M. Evarts. At night the cit>' was 
illuminated and the ceremonies were concluded with 
fireworks and jubilee. 

The Centennial grounds were opened for one 
hundred and fifty-eight days. The daily attendance 
varied from five thousand to two hundred and 
sevent\'-five thousand persons. The total receipts 
for admission were $3,761,000. The total number 
of visitors was nine million seven hundred and 
eighty-six thousand. On the loth of November 
the Exposition was formally closed by President 
Grant, attended by General Hawley and Director 
Goshorn, of Cincinnati. The Memorial building 
was preserved intact as a permanent ornament of Fairmount Park. The ]\Iain Building 
was sold by auction and the materials removed. Machinery Hall was purchased by 
Philadelphia and afterwards removed from the grounds. The Woman's Pavilion was 
presented to Philadelphia, together with most of the government buildings of foreign 
nations. It can not be doubted that the Centennial Exposition left a permanent impression 
for good and contributed to the harmony of the civilized States of the world. 

THE SIOUX WAR OF 1876. 

In the last year of Grant's administration a war broke out with the Sioux Indians. 
This fierce nation had in 1867 agreed with the Government to relinquish all of the territory' 
south of the Niobrara, west of the one hundred and fourth meridian and north of the forty- 
sixth parallel of latitude. The terms were such as to confine the Sioux to a large reserva- 
tion in Southwestern Dakota. To this reservation they agreed to retire by the ist of 
January', 1876. Meanwhile gold was discovered among the Black Hills, lying within the 




ALFRED T. GOSHORN. 




PRESIDENT GRANT FORMALLY OPENING THE CENTENNIAL EXPOSITION. 



(453) 



454 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

limits of the Sioux reserv'atiou. No treat}- could keep the hungr}- horde of white gold- 
diggers and adventurers from overrunning the interdicted region. This gave the Sioux 
good cause for breaking over the limits of their reservation and roaming at large, and also 
a certain excuse for the ravages which they committed in Wyoming and Montana. 

The Government, however, must needs drive the Sioux back upon their reservation. A 
force of regulars under Generals Terr)- and Crook was sent into the mountainous country 
of the Upper Yellowstone and the Indians, numbering several thousand, led by their chief- 
tain, Sitting Bull, were crowded back against the Big Horn mountains and river. Generals 
Custer and Reno were sent forward with the Seventh Cavalry to discover the whereabouts 
of the Indians. They came upon the Sioux in a large valley extending along the left 
bank of the Little Big Horn. Custer led the advance. It was the 25tli of June, 1876. 

With Custer, to see the enemy was to fight. What ensued has never been adequately 
determined. It appears that the General, underestimating the number of the Indians with 
whom he had to contend, charged headlong with his division of the cavalry- into the upper 
end of the town. He was at once assailed by thousands of yelling warriors. Custer and 
everv' man in his command fell in the fight. The conflict surpassed in desperation and 
disaster any other battle ever fought between the whites and Indians. The whole loss of 
the Seventh Cavalry was two hundred and sixty-one killed and fifty-two wounded. Reno, 
■who engaged the savages at the lower end of their town, held his position on the bluffs of 
the Little Big Horn until General Gibbon arrived with reinforcements and saved the rest 
from destruction. 

Other detachments of the army were hurried to the scene of war. During the summer 
and autiimn the Indians were routed in several engagements. Negotiations were opened 
with the chiefs for the removal of the Sioux nation to the Indian Territory; but desperate 
bands of the Red men still remained on the warpath. The civilized Indians of the Terri- 
tor)' objected to having the fierce savages out of the North sent into their country. The 
war went on till the 24th of November, when the Sioux were decisively defeated by the 
Fourth Cavalry in a pass of the Big Horn Mountains. The Indians suffered heav>' losses 
and their town of a hundred and seventy-three huts was totally destroyed. Active opera- 
tions continued until the 6th of January, 1S77, when the remnant of the Sioux was com- 
pletely routed by the division of General Miles. 

The remaining bauds of Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse now made their escape into 
Canada. There they remained until the following fall when a commission, headed by 
General Terry, met Sitting Bull and his principal warriors at Fort Walsh, on the Canadian 
frontier. A conference was held on the 8th of October and pardon was offered the Indians 
for all past offences, on condition of future good behavior. But Sitting Bull and his chiefs 
rejected the proposals. The conference was broken off and the Sioux remained in the 
British Dominions, north of Milk River, ^^'^t until 1880 — and then through the inter- 
vention of the Canadian government — were Sitting uull and his band induced to return to 
the reservation of the Yankton Sioux, on the west bank of the Missouri River, Dakota. 

THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1876. 

Before the end of the war the twenty-third Presidential election had been held. At the 
Republican National Convention of 1876 General Rutherford B. Hayes, of Ohio, and William 
A. Wheeler, of New York, were chosen as the standard-bearers of their party. Samuel J. 
Tilden, of New York, and Thomas A. Hendricks, of Indiana, were nominated by the Demo- 
crats. The Independent Greenback party appeared in the field and presented as candidates 
Peter Cooper, of New York, and Samuel F. Cary, of Ohio. 



* 




HEROIC DEATH OF CUSTER. 



(455 J 



456 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



The canvass began early and was conducted with much asperity. The Democratic 
battle-cry was Reform — reform in the public service and in all the methods of administra- 
tion. The Republicans answered back with the cry of Reform — averring their anxiety to 
correct public abuses of whatever sort, and to bring to punishment all who had been corrupt 
in the offices of the government. To this was added a declaration in favor of National 
sovereignty against the old doctrine of State sovereignty which was still vital in the South. 
The Greenback party also cried Reform — monetary reform first and all other refonns after-= 
wards. It was alleged by the leaders of this party that the redemption of the National 
legal-tenders and other obligations of the United States in gold -was a project unjust to the 
debtor class and iniquitous from ever>' point of view. The advocates of this theory, how- 
ever, had but a slight political organization and did not succeed in securing a single 
electoral vote. 

The canvass drew to a close; the election was held; the general result was ascertained, 
and both the Republican and Democratic parties claimed the victory. The electoral votes 
of Florida, Louisiana, South Carolina and Oregon were claimed by both. In all those 
States there had been great irregularity and fraud at the election. The powers of Congres? 
in such cases were so vaguely defined that no declaration of the result could be made 
There was great confusion in the country and the premonition of civil war. 

THE JOINT HIGH ELECTORAL COMMISSION. 

With the meeting of Congress in December, 1876, the question of the disputed Presi- 
dency came at once before that body for settlement. The situation was complicated by the 
political complexion of the two Houses. In 
the Senate the Republicans had a majority, 
and in the House the Democrats. Acrimonious 
debates began and seemed likely to be inter- 
minable. Should the electoral votes of the 
several States be opened and counted by the 
presiding officer of the Senate in accordance 
with Constitutional usage in such cases? Or 
should some additional court be constituted 
to consider and pass upon the spurious re- 
turns from the States where frauds and irregu- 
larities had occurred? ♦ 

The necessity of doing sometking became 
imperative. The business interests of the 
country grew clamorous for a speedy adjust- 
ment of the difficulty. The spirit of compro- 
mise gained ground in Congress and it was 
agreed that a Joint High Commission should 
be constituted to which all the disputed election 
returns should be referred for decision. The 
body was to consist of five members chosen from 
the Senate of the United States, five from the 
House of Representatives and five from the 
Supreme Court. The judgment of the tribunal was to be final in all matters referred 
thereto for decision. 




THOMAS A. HENDRICKS. 



The commission was accordingly constituted. 



The counting of the electoral votes was 



EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 



457 



begun as usual in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives. When any- 
disputed or duplicate returns were reached they were referred State by State to the Joint 
High Commission, by which body the decision was made. On the 2d of March, 1877, only 
two days before the time for the inauguration, the final judgment of the court was rendered. 
The Republican candidates were declared elected. One hundred and eighty-five electoral 
votes were counted for Hayes and Wheeler and one hundred and eighty-four for Tilden and 
Hendricks. The most dangerous political crisis in the history of the country thus passed 
harmlessly by without violence or bloodshed. * 

* The complete domination of party politics in the United States was never more unhappily illustrated than| 
in the work of the Joint High Commission. This is not said in judgment of the result which was reached, but 
of the features and methods and principles revealed in the work of the Commission. The five members of the 
court from the House of Representatives — that body being Democratic — were of course three Democrats and two 
Republicans ; the five from the Senate — that body being Republican — were three Republicans and two Demo- 
crats ; the five from the Supreme Court were two Republicans, two Democrats and Judge David Davis, an Inde- 
pendent. It was clear from the first that the decision was likely to rest with the probity, conscience and fearless- 
ness of Judge Davis. But before the issue came to trial, by a sudden whirl in the politics of Illinois, the legislature 
of that State elected Judge Davis to the Senate of the United States, thus relieving him of the fearful responsibility 
under which he was about to be placed. Judge Joseph P. Bradley, who was called an Independent, but whose 
political antecedents and proclivities were Republican, was accordingly appointed by the Supreme Court as the 
fifth member firom that body. 

When the proceedings began it was at once manifest that every Democratic member would vote for his can- 
didates whatever might be the proofs ; that every Republican would support Hayes and Wheeler whatever might 
be the facts, and that Judge Bradley, who constituted the real court, would decide according to his antecedent* 
and proclivities. In no single instance during the proceedings did any member of the court rise above his political 
bias. The decision, therefore, happy enough in the sequel, was simply a gigantic political intrigue — a work iti 
which on the whole the Republican leaders were more sagacious and skilfiil than their antagonists. 




CHAPTER XXIX. 
PERIOD OF RECOVERY. 




UTHERFORD BURCHARD HAYES, nineteenth Presi- 
dent of the United States, was born in Delaware, 
Ohio, on the 4th of October, 1822. His primary 
education was received in the public schools. After 
preparaton,- study at Norwalk Acadeiu}' and Webb's 
Preparatory- School, in Connecticut, he entered the 
Freshman class at Kenyon College, Ohio, and was gradu- 
ated with high honors in 1842. In 1845 he completed 
his legal studies at Harvard College. He then begaa 
the practice of law, first at Marietta, then at Fremont, 
and finally in Cincinnati. Here he won a distin- 
guished reputation. In the Civil War he rose to the 
rank of Major-General, and in 1864, being still in 
the field, was elected to Congress. In 1867 he was chosen governor of Ohio, and was 
twice reelected. At the Republican convention of 1876 he had the good fortune to be 
nominated for the Presidency over several of the most eminent men of the nation. 

President Hayes was inaugurated on the 5th of March, 1877.* He delivered for his 
inaugural a conciliaton,- and patriotic address. On the 8th of the month he sent to the 
Senate the names of his cabinet officers, as follows : Secretary' of State, William M. Evarts, 
of New York ; Secretar>- of the Treasury, John Sherman, of Ohio ; Secretary of War, 
George W. McCrary, of Iowa ; Secretary of the Navy, Richard W. Thomp.son, of Indiana ; 
Secretary of the Interior, Carl Schurz, of Missouri ; Attorney-General, Charles E. Devens, 
of Massachusetts ; Postmaster-General, David M. Kee, of Tennessee. These nominations 
were duly ratified by the Senate, and the new administration was ushered in under not 
unfavorable auspices. 

The first notable event under the new administration was the great Railroad Strike of 
1877. Hitherto that action of workingmen which has now passed into the phraseology 
of the times as striking had been little known, and that only in Eastern manufactories and 
in the mining districts of the countr\'. At length, however, more complex conditions of 
industry- had supervened in the United States, and capitalists and employes had come to 
entertain towards each other a sentiment and attitude of anned neutrality. 

Early in 1877 the managers of the great railways leading from the seaboard to the 
West declared a reduction of ten per cent, in the wages of their workmen. The measure 
was to take effect on the first of July, at the precise time when the removal of the enonnous 
grain products of the West would put upon the operatives of the railways the most excessive 
labors. It was the season of the year when receipts from railway freights were largest, and 

* The fourth of March fell on Sunday. The same thing has happened in the following years : 1753, i/' 
182 1 (Monroe's inauguration, second term), 1S49 (Taylor's inauguration), 1877 (Hayes's inauguration) ; and 
eame will occur hereafter as follows : 1917, 1945, 1973, 2001, 2029, 2057, 2085, 2125, 2153. 

(458J 



EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 459 

when, therefore, there was least rational gronnd for a reduction of wages. The resistance 
of the workingmen to the action of the managers was as natural as it was just. 

THE GREAT RAILROAD STRIKE. 

The strike began on the line of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad on the i6th of July. 
The workmen did not content themselves with ceasing to work, but gathered with such 
strength and spirit in Baltimore and Martinsburg, West Virginia, as to prevent the running 
of trains. The militia was called out by Governor Matthews, only to be dispersed by the 
strikers. The President ordered General French, with a body of regulars, to raise the 
blockade of the road, and that officer succeeded at length in performing his duty. On the 
20th of the month a strikers' riot occurred in Baltimore, and nine of the rioters were killed 
and many others wounded by the troops before order could be restored. 

Meanwhile the strike spread rapidly to other and distant localities. In less than a 
week trains on all the important railways between the Hudson and the Mississippi were 
stopped. Except in the cotton-growing States, the labor-insurrection was universal. In 
Pittsburg the strikers gathered to the number of twenty thousand, obtained control of the 
city, and for two days held a reign of terror. The Union depot, machine-shops and all the 
railway buildings of the city were burned. One hundred and twenty-fiye locomotives and 
two thousand five hundred cars laden with valuable merchandise were destroyed with wild 
havoc and uproar. The insurrection was at last suppressed by the soldiers, but not until 
nearly a hundred lives had been lost and property destroyed to the value of more than three 
million dollars. 

By this time travel had ceased. The mails were stopped. Freights perished en route. 
Business was paralyzed throughout the countrv". On the 25th of July a terrible riot 
occurred in Chicago. Fifteen of the insurgents were killed by the police. On the next 
day St. Louis was imperilled b)' a mob. San Francisco was the scene of a dangerous out- 
break, which was here directed against the Chinese immigrants and the managers of the 
lumber-yards. Cincinnati, Columbus, Indianapolis, Louisville and Fort Wayne were 
seriously endangered, but escaped without loss of life or property. By the end of July the 
insurrection had run its course. Business and travel revived, but the outbreak had shocked 
the public mind into a sense of hidden peril to American institutions. 

WAR WITH THE NEZ PERCES INDIANS. 

The war with the Sioux was soon followed by that with the Nez Perces. These 
Indians had their haunts in Idaho. Since 1806 they had been known to the government. 
Lewis and Clarke had made a treaty with them and missionaries had been sent among them. 
In 1854 a part of the Nez Perce territory was purchased by the United States, but large 
reser\^ations were made in Northwestern Idaho and Northeastern Oregon. Some of the 
chiefs refused to ratify the purchase, and came at length into conflict with white settlers 
who had entered the disputed regions. 

War ensued. General Howard, with a small force of regulars, was sent against the 
hostile tribes, but the latter, under their noted chief, Joseph, fled in this direction and that, 
avoiaing battle. The pursuit was kept up until fall, when the Nez Perces were hemmed in 
in Northern Montana by the command of Colonel Miles. Driven across the Missouri River, 
the Indians were surrounded in their camp north of the Bear Paw Mountains. A hard 
battle was fought, and only a few braves, led by the chief, White Bird, succeeded m 
escaping. All the rest were either killed or taken. Three hundred and seventy-five of the 
captive Nez Perces were brought back to the military posts on the Missouri. The troops 



46o PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

of General Howard had made forced marches through a mountainous country for a distance 
of sixteen hundred miles. 

The year 1878 was noted in our financial histor)^ for the passage of the Congressional 
measure known as the Remonetization of Silver. When the American Republic was founded 
in 1789, one of the most important matters imposed on the treasury was the establishment 
of a system of coinage. At that time there might be said to be no unit of value in the Old 
Thirteen States. For the most part the British Pound Sterling, with its subdivisions of 
shillings and pence, was recognized as the money of account. The Revolution had driven 
coin from the country, and the devices of paper money, used in the epoch of Independence, 
were various and uncertain. 

By the first coinage regulations of the United States the standard unit of value was 
the American Silver Dollar, containing three hundred and seventy-one and a fourth grains of 
pure silver. The Spanish-American dollar had this value, and Hamilton, Secretary of the 
Treasury, adapted the new standard to the existing dollar. By this measure it was practic- 
able to recoin Spanish dollars into the American denomination without loss or inconvenience. 

From the adoption of this standard in 1792 until 1873 the quantity of pure metal in 
the standard unit had never been changed, though the amount of alloy was several times 
altered. From 1792 until 1834 the American silver dollar was virttially the only standard 
unit. In the year just named the coinage scheme was enlarged and adjusted on a basis of 
sixteen to one of gold and silver. In 1S49 the coinage of a gold dollar was provided for; 
and from that time forth the standard unit existed in both metals. Nor might it be deter- 
mined whether in accounting in the United States gold was measured by the silver standard 
or silver by the standard of gold. 

DEMONETIZATION AND REMONETIZATION OF SILVER. 

With the coming of the Civil War both metals disappeared from circulation and became 
a commodity of commerce. In the years 1S73-74 at a time when owing to the premium 
on gold and silver both metals were out of circulation, a series of acts was passed by Con- 
gress bearing upon the standard of value whereby the legal-tender quality of silver — very 
adroitly — was first abridged and then abolished. These enactments were completed by the 
report of the coinage committee in 1874, by which it was provided that the silver dollar 
should henceforth be omitted irom. the list of coins to be struck at the national mints. The 
effect of these acts was to leave the gold dollar of twenty-three and twenty-two-hundredths 
grains the single standard unit of value in the United States. In other words, the effect — 
coincident with the intent — was to destroy the bi-metallic and to introduce the mono- 
metallic system of money into our country. 

The ulterior object was not far to seek. The time was near at hand when specie pay- 
ments must be resumed by the government. The debts of the nation were paj'able i?i coiti; 
that is, in both gold and silver coin, at the option of the payer. Meanwhile the great 
silver mines of the Western Alountains were discovered. It was foreseen by the debt- 
holding classes that silver was likely to become abundant and cheap. If that metal should 
be retained in the coinage, therefore, the payment of the national debt would be propor- 
tionally easy. It was deemed expedient to strike down in time the legal-tender quality of 
silver in order that the whole payment of the bonded indebtedness of the United States 
must be made by the standard of a dollar worth more than the dollar of the law and the 
contract; namely, by the single standard of gold. 

The next step in this prodigious scheme was the passage of the Resumption Act. This 
measure was adopted in 1875. By it provision was made that on the ist of Januar)-, 1879, 



EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 461 

the government of the United States should begin to redeem its outstanding obligations in 
coin. As the time for resumption drew near the premium on gold fell off, and at length 
the question was raised as to the meaning of the word " coin " in the act of resuming specie 
payment Now for the first time the attention of the people at large was aroused to the 
fact that by the acts of 1873-74 the privilege and right of paying debts in silver had been 
taken away! It was perceived that after the beginning of 1879 all obligations, both public 
and private, must be discharged according to the measure of the gold dollar only. 

The situation justified the tumult that followed. A cry for the remonetization of 
silver was heard ever>'where. Vainly did the bond-holding interest of the country exert 
itself to stay the tide. The question reached the government, and early in 1878 a measure 
was passed by Congress for the restoration of the legal-tender quality of the old silver dollar 
and providing for the compulsory coinage of that unit at the mints, at the rate of not less 
than two millions of dollars a month. Notwithstanding the unanimity of the country in 
favor of the measure, the President vetoed it; but the veto was crushed under a tremendous 
majority, for nearly three-fourths of the members of Congress, without respect to party 
affiliations, gave their support to the bill. The old double standard of values was thus 
measurably restored, but the fight for the preservation of silver as a monetary unit was only 
begun. 

THE YELLOW FEVER PLAGUE. 

The year 1878 was noted for the prevalence of yellow fever in the Gulf States of the 

Union. The disease appeared first at New Orleans, but was quickly scattered among the 

other towns of the Lower Mississippi. The terror spread from place to place, and people 

began to fly from the pestilence. The cities of Memphis and Grenada became scenes of 

desolation. At Vicksburg the plague was almost equally terrible. The malady extended 

into the parish towns, and as far north as Nashville and Louisville. Throughout the 

summer months the helpless population of the infested districts languished and died by 

thousands. In the North a system of contributions was established, and men and treasure 

were poured out without stint. The efforts of the Howard Association at New Orleans, 

Memphis and other cities were almost unequalled in heroism and sacrifice. More than 

twenty thousand people fell victims to the plague, and its ravages were not staid until the 

coming of frost. 

HALIFAX FISHERY AWARD. 

The eighteenth article of the Treaty of Washington conceded an enlargement of rights 
to the fishermen of the United States in certain waters hitherto controlled exclusively by 
Great Britain. The privilege of taking fish of every kind — excepting shellfish — along 
certain shores and in the bays and harbors cf Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward's 
Islands and Quebec was guaranteed to American fishermen. Our government, on the 
other hand, agreed to relinquish the duties hitherto charged on certain kinds of fish imported 
into American markets. In order to balance any difference which might appear in the 
aggregate of such mutual concessions, it was further agreed that any total advantage to the 
United States arising from the treaty might be balanced by the payment of a sum in gross 
to Great Britain. To determine what such sum might be a commission was provided for. 
One member of the body should be appointed by the Queen, one by the President of the 
United States, and in case the Queen and the President should not agree on the third, he 
was to be selected by the Austrian ambassador at the court of St. James. The provision for 
the third commissioner was one of the strangest incidents of diplomatical history. It 
chanced that the appointment of umpire was given to Count Von Buest, a Saxon renegade 
and hater of republican institutions, temporarily resident as Austrian ambassador in London. 



462 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



I 



The commission was constituted in the summer of 1877, at Halifax. Little attention 
■was giveu to the proceedings until November, when it was announced that by the casting 
vote of Herr Delfosse, Belgian Minister to the United States, who had been named as umpire 
by the Austrian ambassador, the sum of five million dollars had been awarded against 
the American government. The decision was received with the utmost surprise, both in 
the United States and Europe. The National government, however, decided to stand by 
the award rather than renounce the principle of arbitration. The result was such as to 
warrant the sarcasm of the times that Great Britain had got even with the United States on 
the score of the Alabama award. 

It was in this year that a Resident Chinese Embassy was established at Washington 
City. For twenty years the Burlingame treaty between the United States and China had 
been in force. Commercial intercourse had been enlarged between the two countries, and 
race prejudice was to a certain extent broken down. At length the Chinese Emperor was 
assured that his minister would be received at Washington with all the courtesy shown to 
the representative of the most favored nation. Official representatives were accordingly 
sent from the Imperial government to the United States. These were Chen Lan Pin, 
Minister Plenipotentiary'; Yun Wing, Assistant Envoy, and Yun Tsang Sing, Secretary' of 
Legation. On the aStli of September the embassy was received by the President; the cere- 
monies of the occasion being the most novel ever witnessed in Washington City. 

LIFE-SAVING SERVICE AND SPECIE RESUMPTION. 

It was at this time that a bill, introduced by Honorable Samuel S. Cox, of New York, 
for the organization of the Life-saving Service of the United States, was brought before 
Congress, and on the i8th of June, 
1878, was adopted by that body. The 
act provided for the establishment of 
stations and light-houses on all the 
exposed parts of the Atlantic coast 
and along the great lakes. Each 
station was to be manned by a com- 
pany of experienced surfmen, drilled 
in the best methods of rescue and 
resuscitation. All manner of appli- 
ances known to the science of the age 
was added to the equipment of the 
stations, and the success of the work 
was such as to reflect the highest 
credit upon its promoters. For the 
day the question of giving succor to 
shipwrecked sailors engrossed the 
attention of the Government, and 
the people grew anxious to provide 
against the perils of "them that go 
down to the sea in ships." 

In accordance with the legisla- 
tion of 1S75 the Resumption of Specie 
Payments was effected on the ist of January 
the premium on gold had gradually declined. 




1879. 
In the 



JAMKS A. GARFIELD. 

During the four years of interim 
last month of 1878 the difference 



EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 463 

between the value of gold and paper dollars was so slight as to be scarcely perceptible in 
business. For a few days the premium hovered about one per cent. , then sank to the level 
and disappeared. The Gold Room of New York City was closed and metallic money reap- 
peared on the counters of banks and in the safes of merchants. For seventeen years gold 
and silver had been used in merchandise, the legal-tender dollar of the Government con- 
stituting the standard of value. The fact of resumption was hailed by many as the end of 
the epoch of speculation and the beginning of a better financial era. 

Thus passed away the administration of Hayes. It was a peculiar quadrennium in 
American history. The methods of the President lacked emphasis, and there was nothing 
spectacular in the Government during his occupancy of the presidential chair. Many doubts 
entered into the public mind concerning the legality of his election. It should be said, 
however, that his administration had in it more of the genuine elements of reform than had 
existed in any other since the days of Fillmore. His Cabinet was the ablest of its kind 
since the ascendancy of Webster as Secretary of State. Nevertheless, both the President 
and his work were unpopular. The Congressional elections of 1878 went strongly against 
the Republicans. Ever\-thing seemed to foretoken the restoration of the Democratic party 

to power. The Republican National Con- 
vention of 1880 was held in Chicago, on the 
2d and 3d of June. The platform adopted 
was retrospective. The party in power 
looked to the past for its renown and honor. 
After two days of balloting, General James A. 
Garfield, of Ohio, was nominated for Presi- 
dent, and Chester A. Arthur, of New York, 
for Vice-President. 

THE CAMPAIGN OF 1880. 
On the 22d of June the Democratic 
National Convention assembled in Cincinnati. 
The platform adopted declared adherence to 
the doctrines and traditions of the party ; 
opposed centralization ; adhered to gold and 
silver money and paper convertible into coin ; 
advocated a tariff for revenue only and de- 
nounced the party in power. On this plat- 
form the convention nominated for the presi- 
dency General Winfield S. Hancock, of New 
Yoik. and for the vice-presidency William H. 

GENERAI, WINFIEI.D S. HANCOCK. _,;,.,. ^ •' 

English, of Indiana. 

"Xlie convention of the National Greenback party was held in Chicago on the 9th of 
June. General James B. Weaver, of Iowa, and Benjamin J. Chambers, of Texas, were 
named as the standard-bearers. The platform declared for the rights of labor as against 
the exactions of capital ; denounced monopolies ; proclaimed the sovereign power of the 
Go-"ernment over the coinage of metallic and the issuance of paper money ; advocated the 
abolition of national banks ; declared for the payment of the bonded debt of the United 
States ; denounced land-grants ; opposed Chinese immigration, and favored the equal 
taxation of all property. 

It was at this time, namely, in the canvass of 1880, that the Third-party movement 




464 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

reached its climax for the decade. The more rational part of the principles of the Green- 
back party had in them a quality which demanded the assent of a respectable minority of 
the American people. The correctness of these principles was afterwards carried for judg- 
ment to the Supreme Court of the United States, was there argued by the ablest Constitu- 
tional lawyers before a full Bench, and was decided with only a single dissenting opinion in 
favor of the Greenback theor)' of legal-tender paper money, and its validity as money, inde- 
pendent of coin redemption. But politically the party representing these ideas was doomed 
to failure. The contest of 1 880 lay as usual between the Republican and Democratic parties. 
The long-standing sectional division into North and South once more decided the contest in 
favor of the former. That clause of the Democratic platform which declared for a tariff for 
revenue only alarmed the manufacturing interests and consolidated them in favor of the 
Republican candidates. The banking and bond-holding classes rallied to the same standard, 
and the old war spirit against the "Solid South" did the rest. Garfield and Arthur were 
elected by an electoral vote of two hundred and fourteen against one hundred and fifty-five 
votes for Hancock and English. General Weaver received no electoral votes, though the 
popular vote given to him reached an aggregate of three hundred and seven thousand. 

The closing session of the forty-sixth Congress was mostly occupied with the work of 
refunding the national debt. About $750,000,000 of the five and six per cent, bonds now 
reached maturity, and it became necessary' for the government to take them up either by 
payment or refunding. As for payment, that was in part impracticable. As matter of 
fact, payment was not desired by the bond-holders, and was not contemplated by the gov- 
ernment. A bill was passed for the issuance of new bonds of two classes, both bearing three 
per cent, interest ; the first class payable in from five to twenty years, and the second class 
in from one to ten years. The latter bonds were to be issued in small denominations, to 
give the measure the appearance of a popular loan. One provision of the bill required the 
national banks to surrender their high-rate bonds and accept the new three per cents, 
instead. This clause aroused the antagonism of the banks, and they sought in ever}- pos- 
sible way to prevent the passage of the bill. The measure as proposed was repugnant to 
capitalists and bond-holders as a class. These forces at length prevailed, and though the 
bill was passed by Congress, the President returned it with his objections, and the measure 
failed. The question of refunding was thus carried over to the next administration. 

GRANT'S TOUR AROUND THE WORLD. 

At the end of his Presidential term General Grant with his family and a company of 
personal friends set out to visit the countries of Europe and Asia. The party left Phila- 
delphia in May of 1877. The event immediately demonstrated the fact that General Grant 
was regarded by the world as one of the most important personages of modern times. His 
procession from place to place became a constant pageant, such as was never before accorded 
to a private citizen of any nation of the earth. The journey of the ex-President was first 
through the principal cities of England, and afterwards to Belgium, Switzerland, Prussia 
and France. The company then made a brief stay in Italy, and from thence went by 
voyage to Alexandria ; thence to Palestine ; and afterwards to Greece. In the following 
year the General returned to Italy, and passed the summer in Denmark, Sweden and 
Norway. He then visited Austria and Russia, but returned for the winter to the south of 
France and Spain. In January of 1879 the party embarked for the East. The following 
year was spent in India, Burmah, Siam, China and Japan. In the fall of that year the 
company reached San Francisco, bearing the highest tokens of esteem which the nations 
of the Old World could bestow on the honored representative of the New. 



EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 



465 



The census of 1880 was conducted under the skilful superintendency of Professor 
Francis A. Walker, who had already directed the census of the previous decennium. More 
than ever before was the astonishing progress of the United States now revealed and illus- 
trated. The population had increased to 50, 152,866, showing an increase for the decade 
of a million inhabitants 
a year. The population 
of the State of New 
York had risen to more 
than five millions. Ne- 
vada, least populous of 
the States, showed an 
enumeration of 62,265. 
Of the increment of popu- 
lation 2,246,551 had been 
contributed by immigra- 
tion, of whom about 
eight>'-five thousand an- 
nually came from Ger- 
many. The number of 
cities having a population 
of over a hundred thou- 
sand had increased in ten 
years from fourteen to 
twenty-five. The centre 
of population had moved 
westward to a point near 
the city of Cincinnati. 

It was at this time, 
namely, in 1880, that the 
current of the precious 
metals turned once more 
towards America. In that 
year the imports of specie 
exceeded the exports by 
more than seventy-five 
million dollars. Mean- 
while abundant crops 
had followed in almost 
unbroken succession, and 
the overplus of American 
products had gone to 
enrich the country and 




FROM CANAI<-BOY 






to stimulate those 
dustries upon which the nation rests. 

The necrology of this epoch shows many distinguished 
names. Among these may be mentioned Senator Oliver P. Morton, of Indiana, who after 
battling for years against the encroachments of paralysis, died at his home in Indianapolis, 
J^ovember ist, 1877. The great poet William CuUen Bryant, now at the advanced age of 



466 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

eighty-four, passed away on the 12th of June, 1878. On the 19th of December, in the 
same year, the illustrious Bayard Taylor, recently appointed American Minister to the 
German empire, died suddenly at Berlin. On the ist of November, 1879, Senator Zachariah 
Chandler, of Michigan, one of the founders of the Republican party, died, after a brief 
illness in Chicago. On the 24th of February, 1881, another Senator, Matthew H. 
Carpenter, of Wisconsin, after a long sickness at Washington City, passed away. 

LIFE OF GARFIELD. 

Garfield was the twentieth President of the United States. He was born at Orange, 
Cuyahoga county, Ohio, November 19th, 1831. He was left in infancy to the care of his 
mother and the rude surroundings of a backwoods home. There he found the rudiments 
of an education. Further on in youth he served as a pilot on a canal boat plying the Ohio 
and Pennsylvania canal. At seventeen he entered the high school in Chester, and in his 
twentieth year became a student at Hiram College. In that institution he was chosen as 
an instructor until 1854. He then went to Williams College, and from that institu- 
tion was graduated with honor. Returning to Ohio, he was first a professor and afterwards 
president of Hiram College. This position he gave up to become a soldier at the outbreak 
of the Civil War. In the meantime he had studied law, imbibed a love for politics, and 
been elected to the Senate of Ohio. 

As a soldier Garfield rose through the grades of Lieutenant-Colonel, Colonel, and 
Brigadier-General, to become Chief of Stafi" to General Rosecrans. In that relation he 
bore a distinguished part in the battle of Chickamauga. Jg^^^^^„ 

While still in the field he was elected by the people of ^^^^^^^^k 

his home district to the House of Representatives, in wl/Mi ^^^^ 

which body he served continuously for seventeen years. ^wM ^^^^^mk 

In 1879 he was elected to the Senate of the United States; (tl^tf^^t^^ 

but before entering upon his duties was nominated and ^^ ^^^f .^HmHk ^ 

The inaugural address of March 4th, 1881, was a '^^^^J^^^m^^_ x\%^^fc 
paper of high grade. A retrospect of American progress ^^^^^^^^^^^^^B|^^^^^ 
was given. The country was congratulated on its rank ^SBBHR^SBIH^kI^^^^ 
among the nations. The topics of politics were reviewed, ^^^^^^fx^T^^^S^^^ 
and the policy of the incoming executive defined with '^!^^^^^ nS. ^^^^^^ ^?-'-' 
clearness and precision. The public-school system of the ''•'•■M '^^-$0" f 

United States was defended. Some kind words were james g. blaine. 

spoken for the South, as if to assuage the heartburnings of the Civil War. The main- 
tenance of the National Bank system was recommended, and the equal political rights of 
the Black Men of the South advocated. 

The new cabinet was constituted as follows : Secretary of State, James G. Blaine, of 
Maine ; Secretary of the Treasury, William Windom, of Minnesota ; Secretar}- of War, 
Robert T. Lincoln, of Illinois ; Secretan,' of the Navy, William H. Hunt, of Louisiana ; 
Secretar>' of the Interior, Samuel J. Kirkwood, of Iowa ; Attorney-General, Wayne 
MacVeagh, of Pennsylvania ; Postmaster-General, Thomas L. James, of New York. The 
nominations were at once confirmed, and the new administration was established in office. 

CIVIL SERVICE REFORM. 

Now arose the great question of a Reform of the Civil Service. This matter had 
been handed down from the administration of Hayes, under whom efforts had been made to 



EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 



407 



introduce better methods of selecting persons for the appointive offices of the government. 
The real issue was — and has always been — whether the choice of the officials of the govern- 
ment should be made on the ground of the character and fitness of the candidates, or on 
the principle of distributing political patronage to those who had best served the party ; 
whether men should be promoted from the lower to the higher grades of official life and 
retained according to the value and proficiency of their services, or whether they should be 
elevated to positions in proportion to their success in carrying elections and maintaining the 
party in power. 

The members of Congress held strongly to the old order of things, being unwilling to 
give up their influence over the appointive power. To them it seemed essential that the 
spoils should belong to the victors. President Hayes had attempted to establish the oppo- 
site policy, but near the close of his term had been driven from the field. The Republican 
platform of 1880 vaguely indorsed civil service reform, and some expectation existed that 

Garfield would attempt to promote that policy ; but the 
rush of office-seekers at the beginning of his term was over- 
whelming. Washington City was thronged by the hungry 
horde who had "carried the election;" and all plans and 
purposes of reform in the civil service were crushed out of 
sight and trampled under feet of men. 

This break from the declared principles of the party 
was soon followed by a serious political disaster. A division 
arose in the Republican ranks threatening disruption to the 
organization. Two wings of the party appeared, nicknamed 
respectively the "Half-breeds" and the "Stalwarts." The 
latter faction, headed by Senator Roscoe Conkling, of New 
York, had recently distinguished itself by supporting General 
Grant for a third term in the presidency. The Half-breeds 
regarded James G. Blaine, now Secretary of State, as their 
leader, supported and endorsed as he was by the President. 
The Stalwarts claimed their part of the spoils, that is, of 
the appointive offices of the Government. The President, 
however, leading the professed reform element in politics, 
insisted on naming the officers in the various States independently of the wishes of the 
Congressmen therefrom. 

This policy brought on a crisis. The collectorship of customs for the port of New 
York, being the best appointive office in the gift of the government, was contended for by 
both factions. The President appointed to this position Judge William Robertson, and the 
appointment was antagonized by the New York Senators, Roscoe Conkling and Thomas C. 
Piatt; but Robertson's appointment was nevertheless confirmed by the Senate, whereupon 
Conkling and Piatt resigned their seats, returned to their State, and failed of reelection. 
The breach became so wide as to threaten the dismemberment of the Republican party. 

ASSASSINATrON OF GARFIELD. 

Just after the adjournment of the Senate, in June, President Garfield made arrangements 
to visit Williams College, where his two sons were to be placed as students. The President 
also contemplated a short vacation with his wife, who was sick at the seaside. On the morn- 
ing of July 2d, accompanied by Secretary Blaine and a few friends, the President entered 




ROSCOE CONKI,ING. 



468 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



the Baltimore railway station at Washington, preparatory to taking the train for Long 
Branch New Jersey. A moment afterwards he was approached by a miserable political 
miscreant named Charles Jules Guiteau, who came unseen behind the President, drew a 
pistol, and fired upon him. The aim of the assassin was too well taken, and the second 
shot struck the President centrally in the right side of the back. The bleeding man was 
quickly borne away to the Executive Mansion and the vile criminal was hurried to prison. 
The best suro-ical aid was at once summoned and bulletins were issued daily containing 
a brief account of the President's condition. After three days the conviction gained ground 
that he would ultimately recover. Two surgical operations were perfonned in the hope of 
saving his life ; but a series of relapses occurred, and blood-poisoning set in. The Presi- 
dent weakened under his suffering. As a last hope, he was on the 6th of September care- 
fully conveyed from Washington City to Elberon, where he was placed in a cottage near the 
surf. For a few days hope revived ; 
but the patient sank away. On the 
eightieth day after the shot was fired, 

namely, on the evening of September 

19th, the anniversary of the battle of 

Chickamauga, in which Garfield had 

gained his principal military reputa- 
tion, his vital powers suddenly gave 

way, aud death closed the scene. 

Through the whole period of his 

suffering he had bonie the pain and 

anguish of his situation with the 

greatest fortitude and heroism. The 

great crime which now laid him low 

heightened rather than eclipsed the 

lustre of his life. 

Chester A. Arthur, Vice-president, 

at once took the oath of office and 

became President of the United 

States. For the fourth time in the ^„.,T^ 

, , ^ . 1. .1 J .• r ASSASSINATION OF rRHSIPHNT GARFIKI.D. 

history of the Republic the duties of 

the chief magistracy were devolved on the second officer. As for the dead Garfield his 
funeral was observed first at Washington, whither his body was taken and placed in state 
in the rotunda of the Capitol. Here it was viewed by tens of thousands of people on the 
22d and 23d of September. The dead President had chosen Lake View ceineter>- at 
Cleveland as the place of his burial. The remains were conveyed thither by way of 
Philadelphia and Pittsburg. As in the case of Lincoln's death there was a continuous 
pageant on the way. The body was laid to rest on the 26th of September, the day 
being observed as one of mourning throughout the country'. 

GUITEAU, THE ASSASSIN, AND HIS MISERABLE END. 
The assassin Guiteau proved to be a half-crazy adventurer— a fool. He loudly pro- 
claimed his deed, saying that he had shot the President in order to "remove him," and save 
the country ! Here began the extreme unwisdom of the authorities in regard to what should 
be done with this crazed moral idiot. Two constructions of the case were possible : Either 




I 



EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 



469 



Guiteau was a sane man and had committed the greatest and vilest of political assassina- 
tions, or else he was a lunatic, who under the influence of an insane hallucination had shot 
and killed the President. Common sense, prudence, patriotism, political sagacity and the 
whole array of facts regarding the prisoner's character and conduct pointed unmistakably 
to his lunacy and to the second construction given above. But prejudice, anger, folly, 
shortsightedness, newspaper sensationalism and the vengeful passions which flamed up in the 
excitement of the hour, conspired to establish the theory of Gniteau's sanity, with the 
appalling conclusion that the President of the United States had been politically assassinated. 
This theory was taken up and preached with insane ferocity until it prevailed. The voice 
of reason was drowned and the opportunity to save the American people from the stain of 

political assassination was put aside in 
sheer passion. Guiteau was indicted 
and tried for murder. During the 
trial the crowds around the courthouse 
at Washington were little less than a 
mob. The proceedings must perforce 
end with a conviction and condemna- 
tion to death. Then followed a second 
sensational imprisonment, and on the 
30th of June, 1882, Guiteau was taken 
from the jail and hanged. 

Chester A. Arthur was a native 
of Franklin count\', Vermont, where 
he was bom October 5th, 1830. He 
was of Irish parentage, was educated 
at Union College, from which he was 
graduated in 1849. For a while he 
taught school in Vermont and then 
went to New York City to study law. 
He soon rose to distinction. During 
the Civil War he was quartermaster- 
general of the State of New York. 
In 1 871 he was appointed collector of 
customs for the port of New York, a 
position which he held until 1878, when he was removed from ofiice by President Hayes- 
Two years afterwards he was nominated and elected Vice-president. Then followed the 
killing of Garfield and the accession of Arthur to the chief magistracy. 

On the 22d of September the oath of oflSce was a second time administered to the new 
President at the Capitol by Chief Justice Waite. Arthur delivered a brief address; but the 
ceremonies were few and simple. General Grant, ex-President Hayes, Senator Shermaa 
and his brother, the General of the Army, were present and paid their respects to the Presi- 
dent; but the circumstances forbade any elaborate or joyful display. 

The members of the cabinet, in accordance with custom, at once resigned their oflRces. 
The resignations, however, were not accepted, the President inviting all the members to 
retain their places. For the present all the members remained except Windom, Secretary 
of the Treasury, who retired, and was succeeded by Judge Charles J. Folger, of New York. 
Mr. MacVeagh also resigned in a short time, and was succeeded by Benjamin H. Brewster, 




CHESTER A. ARTHUR. 



470 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

of Philadelphia. These changes were soon followed b\' the resignations of Mr. Blaine, 
Secretary of State, and Mr. James, Postmaster-General, who gave place to Frederick T. 
Frelinglmyseu, of New Jersey, and Timothy O. Howe, of Wisconsin. Robert T. Lincoln 
remained, as by common consent, at the head of the Department of War. Though Gar- 
field and Arthur had come from opposite wings of the Republican party, there was little 
tendency shown by the latter to revolutionize the policy of his predecessor. 

THE STAR ROUTE SCANDAL. 

Arthur's administration, however, inherited the troubles and complications ot the pre- 
ceding. One of the first of these was the important State trial relating to the alleged Star 
Route Conspiracy. There had been organized in the post-office department a class of fast 
mail routes known as the Star Routes, the object being to carrj- the mails with rapidity and 
certainty into distant and almost inaccessible portions of the Western States and Territories. 
There was a restriction as to expenditure, but the law gave the Postmaster-General a certain 
discretion in the matter of expediting such mail routes as seemed to be less efficient than 
the service required. This gave to certain officers of the government the opportunity to let 
the contracts for many mail lines at a minimum, and then — under their discretionary- power 
— to "expedite" the same lines into efficiency at exorbitant rates, the end and aim being 
to divide the spoils among the parties to the contract. 

This conspiracy was unearthed before the death of Garfield, and Attorney-General 
MacVeagh was directed to prosecute the reputed conspirators. Indictments were found by 
the Grand Jury against ex-United States Senator Stephen W. Dorsey, of Arkansas; Second 
Assistant Postmaster-General Thomas J. Brady, of Indiana, and several others of less 
note. Mr. MacVeagh, however, seemed to act with little spirit and no success in the prose- 
cution. Attorney-General Brewster then took the question up, and those indicted for con- 
spirac}' were brought to trial. After several weeks the cause went to the jur}-, who absurdly 
brought in a verdict convicting certain subordinates of participating in a conspiracy which 
could not have existed without the guilt of their superiors! The people, however, were 
angered at the scandal, and the Republican defeat in the State elections of 1882 was attri- 
buted in part to popular disgust over the Star Route Conspiracy. 

GREAT INVENTIONS OF THE EPOCH. 

We may avail ourselves of the space here afforded to note briefly a few of the features 
of the progress of physical science in recent times. It has now been perceived that the 
sources of human happiness lie far removed from the fictitious splendors of public life. 
History is departing more and more from the methods of the old annalists to depict the 
movements of human thought and the adaptation of the physical means of amelioration and 
progress. It is safe to aver that the recent additions by inventive processes to the resources 
of physical happiness are the most striking and valuable feature of the civilization of our 
times. At no other age in the history of the world has a practical knowledge of the laws 
of nature been so widely and so rapidly diff"used. At no other epoch has the subjection of 
natural agents to the will of man been so wonderfully displayed. The old life of the human 
race is giving place to a new life based on scientific research and energized by the knowledge 
that the conditions of our environment are as benevolent as they are unchangeable. 

It has remained for American genius to .solve the problem of oral communication 
between persons at a distance from each other. The scientists of our day, knowing the laws 
of sound and electricity, have devised an apparatus for transmitting the human \'oice to a 
distance of hundreds, or even thousands, of miles. The Telephone must stand as a 




NEW INVENTIONS CONTRASTED WITH THE OLD. 
l.-The «rst poaaenger train. 2.-The fast express. .3.-The comiiif; air-ship. 4.-Balloon. .V-Three deck woodeo warship. 



The lateat IrODrclad. 
Modern gun that thrown a 400-po«Dd pro|ertllo 



7 —A passenoer steamer. 8.— Fulton's flrat steamboat. 9.— Wooden cannon of the 1.5th century. 

|w«lve miles, U.-FUnt-lock rifle. 12.-Sectlonal view of magazine rifle. 13.-The anvil and sledge. 14. -The steam trip-b«mm«r. 



(471) 



472 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

reminder to after ages of the genius and skill and progress ot our country in the last quarter 
of the nineteenth century. This instrument seems to have been the work of several ingenious 
minds directed to the same problem at the same time. The solution of the problem, how- 
ever, should be accredited to Elisha P. Gray, of Chicago, and Alexander Graham Bell, of 
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology'. It should be mentioned also that Amos E. 
Dolbear, of Tufift's College, Massachusetts, and Thomas A. Edison, of New Jersey, like- 
wise succeeded in solving the difficulties in the way of telephonic communication, or at 
least in answering practically some of the minor questions in the way of success. 

The telephone is an instrument for the reproduction of sound, particularly of the 
human voice, by the agency of electricity, at long distances from the origin of vocal pro- 
duction. The phenomenon called sound consists of a wave agitation communicated through 
the particles of some medium to the organ of hearing. Every particular sound has its own 
physical equivalent in a system of waves in which it is written. The only thing, therefore, 
that is necessary in order to carry a sound in its integrity to any distance, is to transmit its 
physical equivalent and to redeliver that equivalent to some organ of hearing capable of 
receiving it. 

Upon these scientific principles the telephone has been produced. Every sound which 
falls upon the sheet-iron disc of the instrument communicates thereto a sort of tremor. 
This tremor causes the disc to approach and recede from the magnetic pole placed just 
behind the diaphragm. A current of electricity is thus induced, pulsates along the wire to 
the other end, and is delivered to the metallic disc of the second instrument many miles 
away ju3t as it was produced in the first. The ear of the hearer receives from the second 
instrument the exact physical equivalent of the sound or sounds which were delivered 
against the disc of the first instrument, and thus the utterance is received at a distance just 
as it was given forth. 

The telephone stands to the credit of Professors Gray and Bell. Long before their 
day, however, some of the principles on which the instrument has been created were 
known. As early as 1837 the philosopher Page succeeded in transmitting musical tones to 
a distance. Forty years afterwards, namely, in 1877, Professor Bell, in a public lecture at 
Salem, Massachusetts, astonished his audience and the whole country by receiving and 
transmitting vocal messages from Boston, twenty miles away. Incredulity was dispelled in 
the face of the fact that persons far away were actually conversing with each other by means 
of the telephone. The experiments of Gray at Chicago, only a few days later, were equally 
successful. Messages between that city and Milwaukee, a distance of eighty-five miles, 
were plainly delivered. Nor could it be longer doubted that a new era iu the means of 

communication had come. 

THE PHONOGRAPH. 

The telephone was soon followed by the Phonograph. Both invention? are based ou 
the same principle of science. The discover}' that every sound has its physical equivalent 
in a wave or agitation led almost inevitably to the other discovery of catching, or retaining, 
that equivalent, or wave, in the surface of some body, and to the reproduction of the 
original sound therefrom. 

The phonograph consists of three principal parts ; the sender, or funnel-shaped tube, 
with its open mouthpiece, standing toward the operator ; the diaphragm and stylu-s con- 
nected therewith, which receive the sound spoken into the tube ; and the revolving cylin- 
der, with its sheet coating of tinfoil laid over the surface of a spiral groove, to receive the 
indentations of the point of the stylus. The mode of operation is simple : The cylinder is 



I 



EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 475 

revolved and a sound thrown into the mouthpiece causes the iron disc, or diaphragm, to 
vibrate, or tremble. This agitation is carried through the stylus to the tinfoil, and written 
upon it in irregular marks, dots and figures. When the utterance is to be reproduced the 
instrument is stopped, the stylus lifted from the groove, and the cylinder revolved back- 
wards to the place of starting. The stylus is returned to its place and the cylinder set to 
revolving forward. As the stylus plays up and down in the identations, lines and figures 
in the tinfoil, a quiver exactly equivalent to that produced by the utterance in the mouth- 
piece is communicated backwards to the diaphragm and thrown into the air. This agita- 
tion being the equivalent of the original sound, reproduces that sound as perfectly as the 
machinery' of the instrument will permit. Thus the phonograph is made to talk, to sing, 
to cr}', to utter any sound sufficiently powerful to produce a perceptible tremor in the 
mouthpiece and diaphragm of the instrument. The phonograph makes it possible to read 
by the car instead of by the eye, and it is not beyond the range of probability that the book 
of the future will be written in phonographic plates. 

EVOLUTION OF THE ELECTRIC LIGHT. 

Probably the most marked and valuable invention of the age is the Electric L,ight. 
The introduction of this system of illumination marks an important epoch in the history of 
our country. The project of introducing the electric light was agitated for the first time 
about the beginning of the eighth decade of the century. The advantages of such lighting, 
could the same be attained, were as many as they were obvious. The light is so powerful 
as to render practicable many operations as easily by night as by day. The danger by fire 
from illuminating sources is almost wholly obviated by the new system. A given amount 
of illumination can be produced much more cheaply by electricity than by any means of 
gas-lighting or ordinary combustion. 

Early in 1875 the philosopher Gramme, of Paris, succeeded in lighting his laboratory 
by means of electricity. Soon afterwards the foundry of Ducommun and Company, of 
Mulhouse, was similarly lighted. In the following year the apparatus for lighting by 
means of carbon candles was introduced in many of the factories of France and other coun- 
tries of Europe. 

Lighting by electricity is accomplished in several ways. In general, however, the 
principle by which the result is effected is one, and depends upon the resistance which the 
electrical current meets in its transmission through various substances. There are no per- 
fect conductors of electricity. In proportion as the non-conductive quality is prevalent In 
a substance, especially in a metal, the resistance to the passage of electricity is pronounced, 
and the consequent disturbance among the molecular particles of the substance is great. 
Whenever such resistance is encountered in a circuit, the electricity is converted into heat, 
and when the resistance is great, the heat is, in turn, converted into light, or rather the 
heat becomes phenomenal in light; that is, the substance which offers the resistance glows 
with the transformed energy of the impeded current. Upon this simple principle all the 
apparatus for the production of the electric light is produced. 

Among the metallic substances, the one best adapted by its low conductivity to such 
resistance and transformation of force, is platinum. The high degree of heat necessary to 
fuse this metal adds to its usefulness and availability for the purpose indicated. When an 
electrical current is forced along a platinum wire too small to transmit the entire volume, 
it becomes at once heated — first to a red, and then to a white glow — and is thus made to 
send forth a radiance like that of the sun. Of the non-metallic elements which offer simi- 



474 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

lar resistance, the best is carbon. The infusibility of this substance renders it greatly 
superior to platinum for purposes of the electric light. 

Near the beginning of the present century it was discovered by Sir Humphrey Davy 
that carbon points may be rendered incandescent by means of a powerful electric current. 
The discovery was fully developed in 1869, while the philosopher just referred to was 
experimenting with the great batter}' of the Royal Institution of London. He observed — 
rather by accident than by design, or previous anticipation — that a strong volume of elec- 
tricity passing between two bits of wood charcoal produces. tremendous heat, and a light 
like that of the sun. It appears, however, that Davy at first regarded the phenomenon 
rather in the nature of an interesting display of force than as a suggestion of the possibility 
of turning night into day. 

For nearly three-quarters of a century the discover}- made by Sir Humphrey Davy lay 
dormant among the great mass of scientific facts revealed in the laboratory. In course of 
time, however, the nature of the new fact began to be apprehended. The electric lamp in 
many fonns was proposed and tried. The scientists, Niardet, Wilde, Brush, Fuller, and 
many others of less note, busied themselves with the work of invention. Especially did 
Gramme and Siemens devote their scientific genius to the work of turning to good account 
the knowledge now fully possessed of the transformability of the electric current into 
light. 

The experiments of the last named two distinguished inventors brought us to the 
dawn of the new era in artificial lighting. The Russian philosopher, Jablochkoff, carried 
the work still further by the practical introduction of the carbon candle. Other scientists — 
Carre, Foucault, Serrin, Rapieff, and Werdermann — had, at an earlier or later day, throwr 
much additional information into the common stock of knowledge relative to the illumi- 
nating possibilities of electricity. Finally, the accumulated materials of science fell into 
the hands of that untutored but remarkably radical inventor, Thomas A. Edison, who gave 
him::elf with the utmost zeal to the work of removing the remaining difficulties in the 
problem. 

EDISON, THE WIZARD OF THE AGE. 

Edison began his investigations in this line of invention in September of 1878, and in 
December of the following year gave to the public his first formal statement of the results. 
After many experiments with platinum, he abandoned that material in favor of the carbon- 
arc in vacuo. The latter is, indeed, the essential feature of the Edison light. A small 
semi-circle, or horseshoe, of some substance, such as a filament of bamboo reduced to the 
fonn of pure carbon, the two ends being attached to the poles of the generating-machine, 
or dynamo, as the engine is popularly called, is enclosed in a glass bulb from which the 
air has been carefully withdrawn, and is rendered incandescent by the passage of an elec- 
tric current. The other important features of Edison's discover}' relate to the divisibility 
of the current, and its control and regulation in volume by the operator. These matters 
were fully mastered in the Edison invention, and the apparatus rendered as completely 
subject to management as are other varieties of illuminating agencies. 

The question of artificial light has much to do with the progress of mankind, and par- 
ticularly with the government and welfare of cities. The old systems of illumination must 
soon give place to the splendors of the electric glow. This change in the physical condi- 
tions of society must be as marked as it is salutar}'. Darkness has always been the enemy 
of good government. The ease, happiness and comfort of the human race must be vastly 
multiplied by the dispelling of darkness and the distribution of light by night. The progress 



II 




NEW INVENTIONS CONTRASTED WITH THE OLD. 
t.— Old sta^e coach. 2.— Interior of a drawing-room car. 3.— The telephoue. 4.— The phonograph. 5.— The telegraph. 6.— The first printing praw 
? — FToe perfecting press. 8.— Boh-tail mule car. 9.— Electric street car. 10.— Harvesting with scythe and sickle. 11.— Combined reaper and binder. 

(475) 



476 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



of civilization depends in a large measure upon a knowledge of nature's laws and a diffusion 

of that knowledge among the people. One of the best examples ever furnished in the 

whole history of human progress of the results of such knowledge has been the inventioa 

of the electric light. 

GREAT FEATS OF ENGINEERING. 

The bridge-building of our age furnishes another example of physical progress and 
amelioration. At no other time in modern history has civil engineering been turned to so 
good an account. The principal place among the recent public works in the United States 
may well be given to the great Suspension Bridge over the strait known as East River, 
between New York and Brooklyn. The completion and fonnal opening of this work 
occurred on the 24th of May, 18S3, exciting universal attention and eliciting many 
descriptions. 

The Brooklyn bridge is the longest and largest structure of the kind in the world. It was 
designed by John A. Roebling, originator of wire suspension bridges. Under his super- 
vision and that of his son, Washington A. Roebling, the bridge was completed.* The 
elder of these two eminent engineers was 
already known to fame as the builder of 
the first suspension bridge across the chasm 
of Niagara, and of the still greater struc- 
ture of the same character across the Ohio 
River, between Cincinnati and Covington. 
The Cincinnati bridge was at the time of 
its erection the longest by a thousand 
feet of any of its kind. The younger 
Roebling inherited his father's genius, and 
after the death of the latter showed him- 
self equal to the great task imposed upon 
him in preparing the plans and superintending the constniction of the East River bridge. 

This bridge is a structure supported by four enormous wires, or cables, stretching in a 
single span from pier to pier a distance of 1,595 feet. From the main towers to the anchor- 
ages on either side is 930 feet; from the anchorages outward to the termini of the approaches 
is, on the New York side, a distance of 1,562 feet, and on the Brooklyn side 972 feet, making 
the total length of the bridge and approaches 5,989 feet. The total weight of the structure 
is 64,700 tons; the estimated capacity of support is 1,740 tons, and the iiltimate resistance 
is calculated at 49, 200 tons. The Brooklyn bridge was formally opened in May of 1883. 
The event drew to the metropolis the attention of the American people, and excited some- 
what the admiration of foreign nations. 

Perhaps the finest example of cantilever bridge in America is the great structure of that 
order over the Niagara River just above the village of Suspension Bridge, New York. The 

* The personal history of the Roeblings. father and son, in connection with their great work, is as pathetic as 
it is interesting. The elder engineer was injured while laying the foundation of one of the shore-piers on the 22d 
of Jnly, 1869, and died of lockjaw. W. A. Roebling then took up his father's unfinished task. He continued 
the work of supervision for about two years, when he was prostrated with a peculiar form of paral_vsis known at 
the " Caisson disease," from which he neverfully recovered. His mental faculties, however, remained unimpaired, 
and he was able to direct with his eye what his hands could no longer execute. While thus prostrated, his wife 
developed a genius almost equal to that of her husband and her father in-law. The palsied engineer, thus rein- 
forced, continued for five years to furnish the plans for the work. These plans were almost all drawn by his wife, 
who never flagged under the tasks imposed upon her. In 1876 Roebling was partly restoied to health, and lived 
to hear the applause which his genius and enterprise had won. 



I 




THJJ BKUUKI,VN BRIDGE. 



EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 477 

architect was the distinguished civil engineer C. E. Schneider. The bridge has a total 
length of 910 feet, and crosses the river with a single span of 470 feet. The roadway is 
239 feet above the water level in the chasm below. The materials are steel and iron. The 
bridge as a work of architecture is one of the most beautiful of its kind in the world. 

Another notable example of recent bridge building is the new Washington bridge 
extending from the upper extremity of Manhattan Island across the gorge of the Harlem 
River to Westchester county, on the other side. The work is regarded as the finest and 
grandest of its kind ever erected in America. The structure is of steel and granite and 
bronze. The chasm is spanned by two magnificent arches having plate girders of steel, 
each arch being from foot to foot a distance of 510 feet. The piers are of solid masonry, 
rising to the level of the roadway. The viaduct is supported on vertical posts which rise 
from the arches. The height of the roadway above the level of tide-water in the Harlem is 
152 feet, being 40 feet in excess of the corresponding measurement under the East River 
suspension bridge. All of the ornamentation of the Washington bridge is of bronze. The 
work was constructed in 1888—89, under the direction of the eminent civil engineer William 
R. Hutton. 

In civil affairs the administration of Arthur proved to be uneventful. In the domain 
of politics might be noted the gradual obliteration of those sharply defined issues which for 
the last quarter of a century had divided the two great parties. There was a healthful 
abatement of partisan rancor. It became each year more apparent that the questions at 
issue in the political arena were merely factitious — devised by those interested for the hour 
and the occasion. Nor might any discern in this decade how much longer this ill-founded 
method of political division might be maintained among the American people. 

TARIFF QUESTION— THE ARGUMENT FOR FREE TRADE. 

To the general fact that party questions were no longer vital and distinct there was one 
notable exception. The American people were from 1880 to 1892 really and sincerely 
divided on the question of the Tariff. Whether the true policy of the United States is that 
of free trade or a protective system was a fundamental issue, and the decision was long 
postponed. The policy of gathering immense revenues, from customs-duties during the 
Civil War, and in the decade thereafter, had become firmly imbedded as a factor in the indus- 
trial and commercial systems of the countr}'. A great manufacturing interest had been 
stimulated into unusual, not to say inordinate, activity. Practically the political parties 
had become so m.uch entangled with the finances and the industries of the country that no 
party discipline could withdraw and align the political forces in columns and battalions as 
of old. The question was fundamentally as ancient as the republic. Ever and anon, from 
the foundation of the government, the tariff issue had obtruded itself upon the attention of 
the people. It may not be deemed inappropriate in this connection to state and briefly 
elucidate the various views which have been entertained on the subject. 

First, we have what is called the doctrine of Free Trade, pure and simple. The 
theory is, in a word, as follows : The indications of profitable industry are found in nature. 
The hints and sugg-estions of the natural world are the true indications to mankind as to 
how the various industries which human genius has devised are to be most profitably 
directed. Thus, a rich soil means agriculture. A barren soil is the indication of nature 
against agricultural pursuits. Beds of ore signify mining ; veins of petroleum, oil-wells ; 
a headlong river, water-power ; hills of silica, glass-works ; forests of pine, ship-masts and 
coal-tar ; bays and havens and rivers, commerce. Free trade says that these things are the 



478 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

voice and edict of the natural world as to how human industn,- shall be exerted. The way 
to wealth, prosperity, happiness, is to follow the edict of nature whithersoever it calls. To 
go against nature is to go against common sense. Laissez /aire, that is, " Let alone," is 
the fundamental motto of the system — hands off, and no meddling with plain conditions 
which are imposed on man by his environments. Let him who lives in the fecund valley 
till the soil and gather a hundred fold. Let him who inhabits the rocky upland, by river-, 
side or bed of pent-up coal, devote his energies to manufacture. Let each procure from the 
other by exchange the necessaries and conveniences of life which he could not himself pro- 
duce but at great disadvantage, and an irrational and needless expenditure of toil. The theory 
continues thus : Let the producer of raw material send it near or far to the manufacturer, and 
receive in turn the fabric which he must wear, even the food wherewith he must sustain 
his life. Why should he do otherwise ? Why should either the man or the community 
struggle against the conditions of nature, and the immutable laws of industr}-, to produce 
the entire supply of things necessary for human comfort, convenience and welfare ? It is 
intended that men should live together in amity ; that they should mutually depend one 
upon the other ; that each should gain from the other's genius and exertion what he is 
unable to procure by his own endeavor and skill. Neighbors should be at peace. Different 
communities should not quarrel ; should not put interdicts and checks upon the natural 
laws of intercourse and mutual dependency. Nations should not fight The harmonious 
order of civilization requires a world-wide exchange of products. Men are happier and 
richer, and nations are more powerful, when they give themselves freely to the laws of theii 
environments, and toil in those fields of industry to which both their own dispositions and 
the benevolent finger of nature point the way. 

The theory continues : All contrivances of human law which controvert or oppose 
these fundameutal conditions of legitimate industry are false in principle and pernicious in 
application. If civil society assumes to direct the industries of her people against the plain 
indications of nature, then society becomes a tyrant. The rale of action in such case is no 
longer free but despotic. All laws which tend to divert the industries of a nation from 
those pursuits which are indicated by the natural surroundings are hurtful, selfish, self- 
destructive, and, in the long nm, weakening and degrading to the people. A tariflf duty 
so laid as to build up one industry at the expense of another is a piece of barbaroiis inter- 
meddling with both the principles of common sense and the inherent rights of man. If 
free trade makes one nation dependent on another, then it also makes that other nation 
dependent on the first. The one can no more afford to fight the other than the other can 
afford to fight it. Hence, free trade is the great economic law among the nations. It is 
both sound in theory and beneficial in application. Hence, a tariff" for revenue only is the true 
principle of national action. It is the bottom economic policy of government relative to the 
interests of the people. Such is the general theon.' to which has been given the name of 
Laisses /aire, but which is known among the English-speaking peoples by the more limited 

term Free Trade. 

THE ARGUMENT FOR PROTECTION. 

The first remove from the doctrines above set forth is that of Incidental Protection. The 
primary assumptions of this theory are more nearly identical with those of free trade 
than is commonly supposed. Nearly all of the propositions advanced by the free-trader are 
accepted as correct by the incidental protectionist. The latter, however, holds some pecu- 
liar doctrines of his own. He claims that men, as the doctrine of Laisses /aire teaches, 
should labor according to the indications of nature, and that every attempt on the part of 



EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 479 

government to divert the industries of the people from one channel to another is contrary 
to right, reason and sound policy. But he also holds that since a tariff is the common 
means adopted by most of the civilized States of the world to produce the revenue whereby 
the expenses of government are met and sustained, the same should be so levied as to be 
incidentally favorable to those industries of the people which are placed at a natural disad- 
vantage. He does not hold that any tariff should be levied with the intention of protecting 
and fostering a given industry, but that in every case the tax should be laid for public pur- 
poses only ; that is, with the intention of sustaining the State, and be only incidentally 
directed to the protection of the weaker industry. 

These last assumptions furnish the ground of political divergence between free-traders 
proper and incidental protectionists. The latter take into consideration both the fundamental 
conditions of the argument and the peculiar character of the industries of the people. They 
claim that given pursuits may thus be strengthened and encouraged by legislative provisions, 
and that natural and political laws may be made to co-operate in varying and increasing the 
productive resources of the State. 

The third general view relative to this question is known as the doctrine of Limited 
Protection. The word " limited," in the definition, has respect to a time relation. The 
fundamental difference between this theory and the preceding is this : The incidental pro- 
tectionist denies, and the limited protectionist affirms, the wisdom of levying tariff duties 
with the intention and purpose of protecting home industries. The limited protectionist 
would have the legislation of the State take particular cognizance of the character and 
variety of the industries of the people, and would have the laws enacted with constant 
reference to the encouragement of the weaker — generally the manufacturing — pursuits. 
The doctrine of incidental protection would stop short of this ; would adopt the theory of 
' ' let alone, ' ' so far as the original purpose of legislation is concerned ; but would, at the 
same time, so shape the tariff that a needed stimulus would be given to certain industries. 
The limited protectionist agrees with the free-trader in certain assumptions. The former, 
as well as the latter, assents to the proposition that the original condition of industry is- 
found in nature — in the environment of the laborer. But he also urges that the necessity for 
a varied industry' is so great, so important, to the welfare and independence of a people, as- 
to justify the deflection of human energy by law to certain pursuits, which could not be 
profitably followed but for the fact of protection. 

This principle the limited protectionist gives as a reason for the tariff legislation, which 
he advocates. He would make the weaker industry live and thrive by the side of the stronger. 
He would modify the crude rules of nature by the higher rules of human reason. He 
would not only adapt man to his environment, but would adapt the environment to him. 
He would keep in view the strength, the dignity, the independence, of the State, and would 
be willing to incur temporar>' disadvantages for the sake of permanent good. In the course 
of time, when, under the stimulus of a protective system, the industries of the State have 
become sufficiently varied and sufficiently hannonized with original conditions, he would 
allow the system of protective duties to expire, and freedom of trade to supervene. But 
antil that time he would insist that the weaker, but not less essential, industries of a people 
should be encouraged and fostered by law. He would deny the justice or economy of that 
system which, in a new country', boundless in natural resources, but poor in capital, would 
constrain the people to bend themselves to the production of a few great staples, the manu- 
facture of which, by foreign nations, would make them rich and leave the original producers: 
in perpetual vassalage and poverty. 



48o PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

The fourth general view is embodied in the theor>' of High Protection. In this the 
doctrine is boldly advanced that the bottom assumptions of free trade are specious and false. 
The influence of man upon his environment is so great as to make it virtually whatever the 
law of right reason would suggest. The suggestion of right reason is this : Every 
nation should be independent. Its complete sovereignty and equality should be secured by 
ever}' means short of injustice. In order that a State may be independent and be able to 
mark out for itself a great destiny, its industries must afford employment for all the talents 
and faculties of man and yield products adapted to all his wants. To devote the energies 
of a people to those industries only which are suggested by the situation and environment 
is to make man a slave to nature instead of nature's master. It may be sound reasoning 
for the people inhabiting a fertile valley to devote themselves principally to agricultural 
pursuits; but to do this to the exclusion of other industries is merely to narrow the energies 
of the race, make dependent the laborer and finally exhaust those ver}- powers of nature 
which for the present seem to suggest one pursuit and forbid all others. 

The theor\' of high protection continues thus : It is the duty of societ}' to build up 
many industries in ever}- locality, whatever may be the environment. If nature furnishes 
no suggestion of blast-furnaces and iron-works, then nature must be constrained by means 
of human law. The production of manufactured values should be so encouraged by tariff 
duties as to become profitable in all situations. Not only should every State, but every 
community and every man be made comparatively independent. Every community should 
be able by its own industr}' to supply at least the larger part of its own wants. The spindle 
should be made to turn; the forge made to glow; the mill-wheel made to turn; the engine 
made to pant; the towering furnace made to fling up into the darkness of midnight its 
volcanic glare — all this whether nature has or has not prepared the antecedents of such 
activity. And this cannot be accomplished, or at least not well accomplished, in any other 
way than by legal protection of those industries which do not flourish under the action of 
merely natural law. It is, in brief, the theory of the high protectionist that ever}' commu- 
nity of men, by means of its own varied and independent activities, fostered' and encouraged 
by the protective system of industries, should become in the body politic what the ganglion 
is in the nerve system of man — an independent, local power, capable of originating its own 
action and directing its own energies. 

THE PROHIBITORY TARIFF. 

There is still a fifth position sometimes assumed by publicists and acted on by nations. 
This is the doctrine and practice of Prohibitor}' Tariffs. The idea here is that the mutual 
interdependence of nations is on the whole mutually disadvantageous, and that each should 
be rendered wholly independent of the other. Some of the oldest peoples of the woild have 
adopted this doctrine and policy. The Oriental nations as a rule have until recent times 
followed persistently the exclusive theor}' in their national affairs. The principle is that if 
in any State or nation certain industrial conditions and powers are wanting, then those 
powers and conditions should be produced by means of law. Internal trade is, according 
to this doctrine, the principal thing and commercial intercourse with foreign States a matter 
of secondar}' or even dubious advantage. If the price of the given home product be not 
sufficient to stimulate its production in such quantities as to meet all the requirements of 
the market, then that price should be raised by means of legislation and raised again and 
again, until the foreign trade shall cease and home manufacture be supplied in its place. 

True, there are not many of the modern peoples who now carr}' the doctrine of protec- 
tion to this extreme. But it is also true that in the attempt to prepare protective schedules 



EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 481 

under the system of limited or high protection, it has not infrequently happened that the 
tariff has been fixed at such a scale as to act as a prohibitory' duty and turn aside entirely 
foreign commerce in the article on which the tariff is laid. 

Such, then, are the fundamental principles which underlie the great controversy and 
furnish the issues of political divergence in the United States. The question is as old as 
the beginnings of civil progress in the New World. No sooner was the present govern- 
mental system in our country instituted than the controversy broke out in the halls of 
legislation. Hamilton as first Secretary of the Treasurj- took the question up and adopted 
the policy of limited protection as that of the Federal party. He advocated this policy 
most ably in the papers which he sent at inter\-als from the Department of the Treasury. 
On his recommendation the second statute ever enacted by Congress under the Constitution 
was prepared and passed for the purpose of ' ' providing a revenue and affording protection 
to American industry.'''' The very necessities which gave rise to the Constitution were those 
relating to commerce and interwoven with the tariff. From the beginning the question 
would not down. During the fourth and fifth decades of the centurj' the leading political 
agitations, that is, those that were real, were produced by the revival of the tariff issue in 
our system. During the ascendancy of Henr}' Clay his " American system " became for a 
season the bottom principle of Whig politics. 

In the ante-bellum epoch the Whig party continued to favor the protective system, 
while the Democratic party espoused free trade. After the Civil War the question slumbered 
for a season. Men forgot its import, and reckoned not that it would ever arise again to 
trouble party discipline. In 1880 a paragraph in the national Democratic platform was 
inserted — not indeed with the intention of evoking an old controversy from oblivion — 
which, by declaring in favor of a tariff for revenue only, unexpectedly precipitated the 
whole issue anew, and contributed to, perhaps detennined, the defeat of the Democratic 
ticket. Even in those States where Democracy was in the ascendant the growth of great 
manufacturing establishments had brought in a vast anny of artisans, who in spite of all 
party affiliation refused to support a platform which, according to their belief, was calculated 
to impair, if not destroy, the very business in which they were engaged. 

PARTIES DIVIDED AMONG THEMSELVES ON THE QUESTION. 

In the ensuing quadrennium both Democrats and Republicans made strenuous efforts 
to align their party followers on this question, but neither was successful. The event 
showed that the Democrats were by no means unanimous for free trade, and that the 
Republicans were far from unanimity in their support of protection. Large numbers of 
Republican leaders whose financial interests lay in the direction of agricultural production 
or of commerce rather than in the line of manufactures espoused the doctrine of free trade. 
Never was party discipline more strained on any subject than in the presidential campaigns 
from 1876 to 1888. Especially during the administration of Arthur and his successor did 
the tariff question gather head, and the white crests of conflicting tides were seen along the 
whole surface of political controversy. Nor may the publicist and historian of the passing 
age clearly foresee the solution of the problem. One thing may be safely predicted, that 
the question in America will be decided, as it has already been decided in Great Britain, 
according to self-interest. No people will, in the long run, act against what it conceives to 
be its interest for the sake of supporting a given theory. When some party in power, 
whatever that party may be, shall become convinced that the interest of the United States 
requires the abolition of all protective duties and the substitution therefor of a system of 
31 



482 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



tariff for revenue only, then, and not till then, will the Laissez faire theory of political 
economy take the place of that which has thus far prevailed as the policy of our countr}-. 

Hardly, by the crime of Garfield's murder, had the presideucy been transferred to 
Arthur before the issue of naming his successor was raised by the ever-busy swarm of 
politicians. To the calm-minded observer it appears a thing of wonder that the people of 
the United States have so far permitted themselves to be cajoled, hoodwinked, brow-beaten, 
converted into camp-followers and slaves, by the ignorant horde of interested adventurers 
who have arrogated to themselves the right of civil and political control over the destiny 
of the American Republic. It can hardly be wondered that under the continuance of such 
a system a spirit of political pessimism has gained ground to the very verge of preval- 
ence in the United States. Of a certainty the party newspaper has been and continues to 
be the abettor and agent of Kakistocracy in America. And until the reign of that evangel 
of evil is ended the people of the United States must continue to beat about bliudh-, moping 
and groaning under the despotism of the bad. 

The year 1882 hardly furnished breathing time for the subsidence of political passion. 
The great army of the interested went forth to arouse the country for another contest. In 
this haste might be seen the symptoms of fear ; for it could not be doubted that both politi- 
cal organizations had become alarmed lest through the failure of living issues the old com- 
binations which had divided the country' for a quarter of a century should go to pieces and 
leave the field to the people. But the time had not yet come for the breaking up of the 
political deeps, and the masses were still made to believe that the old questions were vital 
to the welfare of the country. 

PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN OF 1884. 

The political parties made ready for the work before them. Early in 1884 Chicago 



I 



was selected as the place of both the national conventions 
held its convention at Indianapolis in the month of April, 
and nominated General Butler for the Presidency, with A. 
M. West, of Mississippi, for the Vice- Presidency. The 
Republican convention met on the 3d of May, and after a 
spirited session of three days' duration, nominated James 
G. Blaine, of Maine, and General John A. Logan, of 
Illinois. The Democratic delegates assembled on the 9th 
of July and on the nth completed their work by nominat- 
ing Grover Cleveland, of New York, and Thomas A. 
Hendricks, of Indiana. The nominations were received 
with considerable enthusiasm by the respective party follow- 
ings, but large factions in each party refused to support 
the national tickets. 

With the progress of the campaign it became evident 
that the result must depend on the electoral votes of New 
York and Indiana. The preliminary counting showed the 
latter State for the Democrats. New York thus became 
the single battle-field, and there the respective parties 
concentrated their forces. The event proved favorable to 
the Democrats, though their majority in the popular vote 



The Greenback-Labor part>- 




JOHN A. LOGAN. 



of New York was only 1142. 



This small preponderance detennined the result. The vote of the Empire State went to 



EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 483 

Cleveland and Hendricks, assuring to them 219 ballots in the electoral college against 183 
votes for Blaine and Logan. 

The sequel of the presidential election of this j'car was less happy than generally 
happens under like circumstances. The Republican party had been in power continuously 
for twenty-four years. During that time great and salutary changes had taken place in the 
social condition and civil polity of the American people. It was natural that the Repub- 
lican leaders should claim the result as their work, when as a matter of fact it was simply 
the evolution of the age. The great men of that party were honest in claiming that the 
tremendous and beneficial changes which had passed like the shadows of great clouds over 
the American landscape were attributable to the long period of Republican ascendancy. 
To lose power, therefore, was political bitterness itself. It was only by degrees that this 
feeling subsided, and that the office-holders near the close of Arthur's administration began 
to trim their sails with the evident hope that the breezes of civil service reform, to which 
the President-elect was pledged, might waft them somewhat further on the high seas of 
emolument. 

DEDICATION OF THE WASHINGTON MONUMENT. 

The recurrence of the birthday of Washington, 1885, was noted for the dedication of 
the great monument which had been building for so many years at the Capital. The erec- 
tion of such a structure had been suggested as early as 1799. Nor could it well be doubted 
that the American people would, in due time, rear some appropriate memorial to the Father 
of his Country. The work was not undertaken, however, until 1835. In that year an 
organization was effected to promote the enterprise. But for a long time after the begin- 
ning, the work of building lagged, and it was not until Congress, taunted at last into action 
by the animadversions of the press and people, undertook the prosecution of the enterprise 
that it was brought to completion. 

The cost of the Washington Monument was about $1,500,000. It stands on the left 
bank of the Potomac, in the southern outskirts of Washington City. The structure was, 
at the time of its erection, the highest in the world. The shaft proper, without reckoning 
the foundation, is 555 feet in height, being thirty feet higher than the Cathedral at 
Cologne, and seventy-five feet higher than the pyramid of Cheops in its present condition. 
The great obelisk is composed of more than eighteen thousand blocks of stone. They are 
mostly of white marble, and weigh several tons each. One hundred and eighty-one memo- 
rial stones, contributed by the different States of the Union and by friendly foreign nations, 
are set at various places in the structure. 

The dedication of the monument occurred on Saturday, the 21st of February. The 
ceremonies were of the most imposing character. A procession of more than six thousand 
persons marched from the base of the monument, along Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capi- 
tol, while salutes were fired from the batteries of the navy yard. At the Capitol the pro- 
cession was reviewed by the President of the United States. The concluding ceremonies 
were held in the House of Representatives, where a great throng of distinguished people 
had assembled — not so much to do honor to the occasion as to be honored by it. The 
principal oration, written by Hon. Robert C. Winthrop, as well as the less foniial addresses 
of the day, was well worthy of the event, and calculated to add — if aught could add — to 
the fame of him who was "first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his fellowa 
citizens." 



CHAPTER XXX. 



THE DEMOCRATIC RESTORATION. 




ROVER CLEVELAND, twenty-second President of the 
United States, was born at Caldwell, New Jersey, 
March iS, 1S37. Three years afterwards he was taken 
by his father and mother to Fayetteville, near Syracuse, 
New York. Here, in his boyhood, he received such 
limited education as the schools of the place afforded. 
For a while in his youth he was clerk in a village store. 
Afterwards the family removed first to Clinton and then 
to Holland Patent. At the latter place his father died, 
and young Cleveland, left to his own resources, went to 
New York and became a teacher in an asylum for the 
blind. After a short time, however, the young man, 
finding such pursuits uncongenial to his tastes, went to 
Buffalo and engaged in the study of law. He was 
admitted to the bar in 1859, and, four 3'ears afterwards, 
began his public career as Assistant District Attorney. In 1869 he was elected Sheriff of 
Erie county, and in 1881 was chosen Mayor of Buffalo. His next promotion by his fellow- 
citizens was to the governorship of New York, to which position he was elected in 1882, 
by the astonishing majority of 192,854 — the majority being perhaps unparalleled in the 
history of American elections. It was while he still held this office that, in July of 1884, 
he was nominated by the Democratic party for the presidency of the United States. 

Much interest was manifested by the public in the constitution of the new Cabinet. 
On the day following the inauguration the nominations Avere sent to the Senate, and were 
as follows : For Secretary of State, Thomas F. Bayard, of Delaware ; for Secretary of the 
Treasur)', Daniel Manning, of New York ; for Secretary of the Interior, Lucius O. C. 
Lamar, of Mississippi ; for Secretary of War, William C. Endicott, of Massachusetts ; for 
Secretary of the Navy, William C. Whitney, of New York ; for Postmaster-General, William 
F. Vilas, of Wisconsin ; for Attorney-General, Augustus H. Garland, of Arkansas. The 
peculiarity of the appointments was that two of them were from New York. But the preju- 
dice which might arise on this account was fully counterbalanced by the high character and 
undoubted abilities of the men whom the President had chosen as the responsible advisers 
of his administration. 

At the beginning of his administration the President was confronted with the irrepres- 
sible question of the distribution of patronage. His party had come into power on a plat- 
fonn declaring for civil-ser\'ice reform. Of late years the political opinion of the country 
had begun to turn with disgust from the gross practice of rewarding men for mere party 
services. In the evenly balanced presidential contests of 1880 and 1884 it became all-im- 
portant to conciliate, at least by profession, the growing phalanx of civil-service reformers. 

(484J 



EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 



4«5 



They it was to whom Cleveland owed his election; for they accepted his pledges and 
principles. Their views and the Piesident's were in accord, and the new administration was 
launched with civil-service reform insci'ibed on its pennon. 

The event showed, however, that the Democratic part}' was not equal to its pledges 
and not up to the President's level of principle. It was clear that the Democratic leaders 
had in large part upheld the banner of civil service merely as an expedient. The Presi- 
dent's sincere attempt to enforce the principles of the party platform by an actual reform 

became appalling to the captain-generals of his party. To 
them the declaration in favor of a new and better system 
was purely nominal. They made a rush to gather the 
spoils of victor}', and were astounded that the Chief 
Magistrate should presume to refuse them. From the outset 
it was a grave question whether the President would be 
able to stand by the flag of reform or rather be driven to 
readopt the cast-off system of spoils. 

MEMORIAL LITERATURE OF THE WAR. 
It was a peculiarity of this epoch that the deeds and 
memories of the Civil War revived in public interest. The 
circumstance was attributable perhaps to the fact that the 
great men of that conflict now entered the shadows of old 
age and became talkative about the stirring e«ploits of 
their youth and manhood. Now it was that the series of 
authoritative publications concerning the war for the 
Union, written by the leading participants, began to 
appear. This work, so important to a true knowledge 
of the great straggle for and against the Union, was 
begun by General William T. Sherman, who in 1875 published his Memoirs narrating 
the story of that part of the war in which he had been a leader. This publication had 
indeed been preceded by some years by that of Alexander H. Stephens, late Vice-president 
of the Confederacy, who in 1870 completed his two volumes entitled The War 
between the States. In 1884 General Grant began the publication, in the Century 
Magazine^ of a series of war articles which attracted universal attention, and which led to 
the preparation and issuance of his Memoirs in 1885-6. Similar contributions by many 
other eminent commanders of the Union and Confederate armies followed in succession, 
until a large literature of the Civil War was left on record for the instruction of after times. 

DEATH OF GENERAL GRANT. 

The interest in these publications was heightened by the death within a limited period 
of a large number of the great generals who had led armies in the war for the Union. It 
was early in the summer of 1885 that the attention of the people was called 'away from 
public affairs by the announcement that the veteran General Ulysses S. Grant had been 
stricken with a fatal malady ; that his days would be few among the living. The hero of 
Vicksburg and Appomattox sank under the ravages of a malignant cancer which had fixed 
itself in his throat, and on the 23d of July he died quietly at a summer cottage on Mount 
McGregor, New York. For some months the silent hero, who had commanded the com- 
bined armies of the United States had been engaged in the pathetic work of bringing to 
completion his two volumes of Me^noirs^ from the sale of which — sucli is the gratitude of 




GROVER CLEVELAND. 



EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 



4«7 



republics — the resources of his family must be chiefly drawn. It was a race, with death 
for the goal. Scarcely had the enfeebled general laid down his pencil until the enemy 
knocked at the door. 

The last days of Grant were hallowed by the sympathies of the nation which he had 
so gloriously defended. The news of his death passed over the land like the shadow of a 
great cloud. Almost every city and hamlet showed in some appropriate way its emblems of 
grief. The funeral ceremonies equalled, if they did not surpass, any which have ever been 

witnessed. The procession 
in New York City was per- 
haps the most solemn, elab- 
orate, and imposing pageant 
ever exhibited in honor of 
the dead, at least since the 
funeral of the Duke of Wel- 
lington. On August 8th, 
1885, the body of General 
Grant was laid to rest in 
Riverside Park, overlooking 
the Hudson. There, on a 
summit from which may be 
seen the great river and the 
metropolis of the nation, is 
the tomb of him whose 
courage and magnanimity 
in war will forever give him 
rank with the few master 
spirits who, by their heroic 
deeds, have honored the hu- 
man race, and by their ge- 
nius have changed some- 
what the course of history. 

The enterprise of rear- 
ing a suitable monument to 
General Grant was delayed 
by untoward circumstances. 
The General had himself 
designated Riverside Park 
as his last resting-place. Soon after his death a Monument Commission was organized in 
New York City, and subscriptions taken, but the work lagged. The question of removing 
his remains to Washington City was once and again agitated. At length, however, the 
Commission was reorganized, with General Horace Porter as chairman. From that time 
the enterprise was pressed, and on the 27th day of April, 1892, the corner-stone of what 
is destined to be the most elaborate and artistic mausoleum in the New World was laid. 
The oration of the occasion was delivered by Hon. Chauncey M. Depew, of New York. 

OTHER DISTINGUISHED DEAD. 
The death of General Grant was quickly followed by that of another distinguished 
Union commander. On the 29th of October, 1885, General George B. McClellan, 




«. BIKTHI'LACE OF C,]-; NIGRAL GRANT. 2. HIS TOMB IN RrVERSIDE PARK, 
NEW YORK CITY. 3. VIEW FROM RIVERSIDE PARK, LOOKING NORTH. 
4. FLEET FIRING SALUTE IN THF, HUDSON RIVER ON THE DAY OF 
HIS FUNERAL. 



488 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



organizer of the Anny of the Potomac, at one time general-in-chief, subsequently 
Democratic candidate for the presidency, and at a later period governor of New Jersey, 
died at his home in St. Cloud, in that State. The conspicuous part borne by him during 
the first two years of the war, his eminent abilities as a soldier and civilian, his unblemished 
character as a citizen, heightened the popular estimate of his life, and evoked the sincerest 
expressions of national sorrow for his death. * 

The next great Union commander to pass away was General Winfield S. Hancock. 
This brave and generous officer was at the time of his death senior major-general of the 
American anny. Always a favorite with the people and the soldiers, he had, since the 
close of the war, occupied a conspicuous place before the public. In 1880 he was the 
Democratic candidate for the presidency, and, though defeated by General Garfield, the 
defeat was without dishonor. His death, which occurred at his home on Governor's Island 
on the 9th of February, 1886, was universally deplored, and the people omitted no mark 
of respect for the memory of him who, in the great struggle for the preservation of the 
Union, had won the title of "Hero of Gettysburg." Thus have passed away the gallant 
generals of the Army of the Potomac. George B. McClellan, Ambrose E. Burnside, 
Joseph Hooker, George G. Meade, and Winfield S. Hancock have, one by one, joined 

"The innumerable caravan that moves 
To that mysterious realm, where each shall take 
His chamber iu the silent halls of Death." 

In 1886 General John A. Logan, Senator of the United States from Illinois, sickened 
and died at his home called Calumet Place, in Washington City. His career had been 
distinguished in the highest degree. At the 
outbreak of the civil war few men did more 
than Logan to strengthen the Union sentiment 
in the wavering Border States. Resigning his 
seat in Congress, he joined the first advance, and 
fought as a private at Bull Run. Without pre- 
vious military training, he rose rapidly to dis- 
tinction, and became par excellence the volun- 
teer general in the war for the Union. He re- 
turned to political life, and was chosen to the 
United States Senate. He remained at his post 
until his death, passing away with unmistak- 
able evidences of the enduring place which he 
had won in the affections of the American 
people. 

Meanwhile a distinguished civilian had fal- 
len from high office. On November 25th, 1885, 
Vice-president Thomas A. Hendricks, after an 
illness of but a single day, died suddenly at 
his home in Indianapolis. Not a moment's 
warning was given of the approach of the fatal 
paralysis. The life of Hendricks had been one of singular purity, and the amenities of his 
character had been conspicuous in the stonny arena of American politics. The body of 

* The posthumous publication of McClellan's Ozvn Story, under the auspices of his bereaved wife, is on the 
whole to be regretted. As a contribution to the military and ci\-il history of the time, the work is valuable ; but 
to McClellan's memory the book is damaging. In a few matters the civilians in authority over McClellan (b«t 
not Lincoln) are put on the defensive ; but, taken altogether, the apology mars the General's fame. 




GRANT'S TOMB IN RTVERSIDE PARK. 



EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 489 

the dead statesman was buried in Crown Hill Cemetery, near Indianapolis, the funeral 
pageant surpassing in grandeur and solemnity any other display of the kind ever witnessed 
in the Western States, except the funeral of Lincoln. 

The next distinguished citizen to pass away was Horatio Seymour, of New York. 
On the 1 2th of February', 18S6, this noted leader and politician, who had been governor 
of the Empire State, and Democratic candidate for the presidency against General Grant, 
died at his home in Utica. He had reached the age of seventy-six, and though living in 
retirement, never ceased to hold a large share of the attention of his fellow-citizens. 

Much more eminent than he, however, was Samuel J. Tilden, who died at his home 
called Greystone, at Yonkers, near New York City, on the 4th of August, 1886. Tilden 
had lived to make a marked impression on the political thought of the epoch. His 
intellect was of the highest order, and his attainments unquestionable. At the time of 
his death he was in the seventy-third year of his age. For forty years he had been a 
prominent figure in his own State and before the nation. In 1870-71 he was among 
the foremost in unearthing the astounding frauds and robberies which had been perpe- 
trated on the city treasury- of New York. In the following year he was sent to the 
General Assembly, where his services were invaluable. In 1874 he was elected governor 
of New York by a majority of more than fifty thousand votes. 

In the executive office Tilden was one of the ablest men who ever occupied the guber- 
natorial chair of the State. In 1876 he came marvellously near reaching the presidency. 
The popular vote was largely in his favor, and the majority in the electoral college was 
lost through the superior tactics of the leaders of the party in power. Neither Tilden nor 
Hayes was clearly elected, the Democrats having carried two or three States with the 
shot-gun, and the Republicans, by the aid of the Electoral Commission, having "counted 
in" one or two States which they did not carry at all. Tilden in private life continued to 
guide the counsels of his party. In 1880 he would have been re-nominated but for the 
enfeebled condition of his health. One of his ablest — as it was his last — public paper, 
was a general letter on "The Coast and Harbor Defences of the United States," a publi- 
cation which led to the legislation of the Forty-ninth Congress on that important subject. 

DEATH OF BEECHER AND CHIEF JUSTICE WAITE. 

To this mortuary list of military heroes and great civilians must be added the illus- 
trious name of Henry Ward Beecher. To him, with little reservation, we may assign the 
first place among our orators and philanthropists. Nor is it likely that his equal in most 
of the sublime qualities of energy and manhood will soon be seen again on the stage of 
life. His personality was so large, so unique and striking, as to constitute the man in 
some sense stii generis. His kind is rare in the world, and the circumstances which aided 
in his development have passed away. That fact in American history — the institution of 
slaver}- — which brought out and displayed the higher moods of his anger and stormy 
eloquence, cannot again arouse the indignation of genius. The knight and his dangerous 
foil sleep together in the dust. 

Mr. Beecher had the happy fortune to retain his faculties unimpaired to the very close 
of his career. On the evening of the 5th of March, 1887, at his home in Brooklyn, sur- 
rounded by his family, without premonition or portent, the message came by apoplexy. 
An arter\' broke in that magnificent heavy brain that had been for more than forty years 
one of the greatest batteries of thought and action in the world ; and the aged orator, 
nearing the close of his seventy-fourth year, sank into that deep sleep from which no 



490 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



power on earth could wake him. He lived until the morning of the 8th, and quietly 
entered the shadows. The sentiments awakened by his death, the circumstances of his 
sepulture, and the common eulogium of mankind, proved beyond doubt the supreme place 
which he had occupied in the admiring esteem, not only of his countrymen, but of all the 
great peoples of the world. 

In order of occurrence the next two deaths of men of national reputation were those 
of Chief Justice Morrison R. Waite, of the Supreme Court of the United States, and 
ex-Senator Roscoe Conkling, of New York. The former died at his home in Washington 
Cit>' on the 23d of March, 1888. The Chief Justice was a native of Lyme, Connecticut; 
born on the 29th of November, 1816. His education was first of the public school and 
afterwards of Yale College, from which he was graduated in 1837. He became a 
student of law, removed to Ohio, and practiced his profession at Maumee City. In 1849 
he entered public life, serving in the legislature of the State. He then made his home at 
Toledo, where he remained in the practice of his profession until he was called by General 
Grant to sit at the head of the Supreme Bench of the United States. Meanwhile he had 
served as a member of the Board of Arbitration sitting at 
Geneva for the adjudication of the Alabama claims. He 
brought to the office of Chief Justice a character, talents 
and attainment equal to the responsibilities of the position. 
The death of Waite may well suggest a brief notice of that 
Great Court over which he presided during the last fourteen 
years of his life. 

SKETCH OF THE SUPREME COURT. 

In the formation of the Constitution of the United 
States, it was intended that the three General Departments 
of the government should be of correlative rank and 
influence. The sequel, however, as developed in the actual 
working of our National system, has shown that the 
Executive and Legislative departments predominate, natur- 
ally — perhaps inevitably — over the judicial branch, and 
that, in the popular estimate at least, the Supreme Court is 
of small importance as compared with the presidency and 
the two Houses of Congress. 

This disesteem of the judiciary is not verified by a 
broader and more philosophical view on the subject. The importance, especially, of the 
conservative opinion of our great National Court in determining, at least negatively, the 
final validity of all legislation and all subordinate judicial decisions, can hardly be over- 
estimated. The same may be said of the Supreme Bench considered as the only immovable 
breakwater against the unscrupulous and rampant spirit of party. It is fortunate that the 
offices of our Chief Justice and of the Associate Justices are appointive, and are thus 
removed, in great measure, from the perfidy of the convention and the passion of a 
partisan election. 

It may be of interest to glance for a moment at some of the vicissitudes through which 
the Supreme Court has passed since its organization in 1789. The Court was then 
instituted by the appointment of John Jay as Chief Justice, who held the office until 1796, 
when he gave place to Oliver Ellsworth. The latter remained in office until, in 1800, the 
infirmities of age compelled his resignation. Then came the long and honorable ascendancy 




HENRY \V.\KD liKECHER.. 



EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 491 

©f Chief Justice John Marshall, who presided over the Court from his appointment in 1801 
to his death in 1835. This was the Golden Age of the American Supreme Court. From 
1835 to 1837 there was an interregnum in the Chief Justiceship, occasioned by the disagree- 
ment of President Jackson and the Senate of the United States. But in the latter year the 
President secured the confirmation of Judge Roger B. Taney as Chief Justice, who entered 
upon his long term of twenty- seven years. It was his celebrated decision in case of the 
negro Dred Scott, relative to the status of the slave-race in America, that applied the torch 
to that immense heap of combustibles whose explosion was the Civil War. 

After the death of Chief Justice Taney, in 1864, President L,incoln appointed, as his 
successor, Salmon P. Chase, recently Secretary' of the Treasury, and author of most of the 
financial measures and expedients by which the National credit had been buoyed up and 
preserved during the Rebellion. His oihcial term extended to his death, in 1873, and 
covered the period when the important issues arising from the Civil War were under 
adjudication. To Chief Justice Chase fell also, by virtue of his office, the duty of presiding 
at the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson. In 1874 the appointment of Morrison 
R. Waite as Chief Justice was made by President Grant. 

The death of Chief Justice Waite made way for the return to the supreme judicial 
office in the United States of some member of the political party which had long been out 
of power. Since the epoch of the Civil War the court had been filled almost exclusively 
with judges who, by political affiliation, belonged to the Republican party. The first 
distinctly Democratic appointment which was made in the last quarter of a century was the 
recent one of Judge Lucius Q. C. Lamar, who, by the nomination of President Cleveland, 
was transferred from the Secretaryship of the Interior to the Svipreme Bench. It thus 
happened, in the vicissitude of things, that the two political theories which were opposed 
to each other in the War for the Union, and are still opposed by party name, became 
confluent in the High Court of the Nation. This circumstance was to some a source of 
alarm and prejudice ; but the fear was not well founded. Partisan dispositions are less 
potent and dangerous — if, indeed, they assert themselves at all — on the Supreme Bench of 
the United States. Thus far in its history the Court has, as a rule, been as pure in its 
administration and methods as it has been great in reputation. The muddy waters of party 
conflict have only eccasionally reached as high as the chambers of our honored tribunal ; 
and the fear that it may be otherwise hereafter may hopefully be put aside as a groundless 
and spectral chimera of the hour. On May ist, 1888, the President appointed Judge 
Melville W. Fuller, of Chicago, to the vacant Chief Justiceship. 

ROSCOE CONKLING. THE GREAT LEADER. 

The impression produced by the death of Chief Justice Waite had scarcely passed when 
the decease of another citizen, most noted for high character and great talents, called the 
public attention to the rapid disappearance of the Nation's most distinguished represent- 
atives. On the i8th of April, at the Hoffinan House, New York City, Honorable Roscoe 
Conkling, ex-Senator of the United States, died after a brief and painful illness. A local 
inflammation, resulting in the formation of a pus-sack under the mastoid bone of the skull, 
led to the cutting of the skull in hope of saving Mr. Conkling's life ; but he succumbed to 
the fatal malady and the shock of the operation. 

Roscoe Conkling was bom in Albany, New York, on the 30th of October, 1829. After 
the completion of an academic course of study, he went as a student of law to Utica, in 
1846. On reaching his majority he was admitted to the bar, and was soon afterward 



492 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

appointed to the office of County Attorney. From the beginning of his career his great 
talents and remarkable force of character were manifest. He made a profound impression, 
first upon the local, and then upon the general society of New York. In 1858 he was 
mayor of Utica, and in the same year was sent to the National House of Representatives. 
He had already become an able politician, and was soon recognized as the leader of the 
Republican party in his native State. His rise was rapid, and his influence became marked 
in the affairs of the government. He served for six years in the Lower House, and in 1866 
was elected to the Senate. In that body he aspired to leadership, and gradually attained 
it, though not without many struggles and contests with the great men of the epoch. He 
was twice reelected Senator — in 1872 and 1878; but in the third tenn, namely, in 1S81, 
he found himself in such relations with the Garfield Administration as induced him to 
resign his seat. This step was regarded by many as the mistake of his political life. At 
any rate he failed of a reelection, the Administration party getting control of the Legisla- 
ture of New York, and sending another in his place. After this, Mr. Conkling retired to 
private life, and took up with great success the practice of his profession in New York City. 

Roscoe Conkling was a man of the highest courage and stanchest convictions. He 
never shone to greater advantage than when leading the forces of General Grant in the 
Chicago Convention of 18S0. He was a born political general. His will and persistency 
and pride gave him a power which, if it had been tempered with greater urbanity, could 
hardly have failed to crown his life with the highest honors of the Nation. His talents 
rose to the region of genius, and his presence was magnificent — an inspiration to his friends, 
a terror to his enemies. As a summary' of the results of his career, it may be said that, 
at the time of his death, none except his eminent rival, Mr. Blaine, might successfully con- 
test with him the proud rank of the most distinguished private citizen of the United States. 

Meanwhile, in the spring of 1886 had occurred one of the most serious labor agita- 
tions which had ever been witnessed in the United States. It were difiicult to present an 
adequate statement of the causes, general and special, which produced these alarming 
troubles. Not until after the close of the Civil War did there appear the first symptoms 
of a renewal, in the New World, of the struggle which has been going on for so long a 
time in Europe between the laboring classes and the capitalists. It had been hoped that 
such a conflict would never be renewed in the countries west of the Atlantic. Such a 
hope, however, was doomed to disappointment. The first well-marked symptoms of the 
appearance of serious labor strikes and insurrections occurred as early as 1867. The origin 
of these difficulties was in the coal and iron producing regions of Pennsylvania and in 
some of the great manufactories of New England. For a while the disturbances produced 
but little alarm. It was not until the great railroad strike of 1877 that a general appre- 
hension was excited with respect to the vmfnendly relations of labor and capital. In the 
following year much uneasiness existed; but the better times, extending from 1879 to 
1882, with the consequent favorable rate of wages, tended to remove, or at least to post- 
pone, the renewal of trouble. 

THE ORGANIZATION OF LABOR. 

A series of bad crops ensued, and the average ability of the people to purchase was 
correspondingly diminished. The speculative mania, however, did not cease, and the large 
amounts of capital withdrawn from legitimate production and lost in visionar\' enterprises, 
still further reduced the means of employing labor. Stagnation ensued in business; stocks 
declined in value, manufactories were closed, and the difficulty of obtaining employment 
was ereatly increased. 




HOMBS AND BIRTHPLACES OF GREAT AMERICANS. 



(493) 



494 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

While these causes — half-natural, half-artificial — were at work, others, wholly ficti- 
tious, but powerful in their evil results, began to operate in the creation of strife and ani- 
mosity. Monopolies grew and flourished to an extent hitherto unknown in the United 
States. On the other hand, labor discovered the salutary but dangerous power of combi- 
nation. A rage for organizing took possession of the minds of the laboring men of the 
countr}', and to the arrogant face of monopoly was opposed the insurrectionar\- front of 
the working classes. 

More serious still than the causes here referred to was the introduction into the United 
States of a large mass of ignorant foreign labor. The worst elements of several European 
States contributed freely to the manufactories and workshops of America, and a class of 
ideas utterly un-American became dominant in many of the leading establishments of the 
countr}'. Communistic theories of society and Anarchistic views of government began to 
clash with the more sober republican opinions and practices of the people. To all this 
must be added the evils and abuses which seem to be incident to the wage-system of labor, 
and are, perhaps, inseparable therefrom. The result has been a growing jealousy of the 
two great parties to production, the laborer and the capitalist. 

The opening of trade for the season of 1886 witnessed a series of strikes and labor 
imbroglios in all parts of the country. Such troubles were, however, confined for the most 
part to the cities and towns where labor was aggregated. The first serious trouble occurred 
on what is known as the Gould System of railways, reaching from the Mississippi to the 
Southwest. A single workman, belonging to the Knights of Labor, and employed on a 
branch of the Texas and Pacific Railway, at that time under a receivership, and therefore 
beyond the control of Ja)- Gould and his subordinates, was discharged from his place. This 
action was resented by the Knights, and the laborers on a great part of the Gould System 
were ordered to strike. The movement was, for a season, successful, and the transportation 
of freights from St. Louis to the Southwest ceased. Gradually, however, other workmen 
were substituted for the striking Knights ; the movement of freights was resumed, and the 
strike ended in a comparative failure; but this end was not reached until a severe riot in 
East St. Louis had occasioned the sacrifice of several innocent lives. 

ANARCHY IN CHICAGO. 

Far more alanning was the outbreak in Chicago. In that city the Socialistic and 
Anarchistic elements were sufficiently powerful to present a bold front to the authorities. 
Processions bearing red flags and banners with Communistic devices and mottoes, frequently 
paraded the streets, and were addressed by demagogues who avowed themselves the open 
enemies of society and the existing order. On the 4th of May, 1886, a vast crowd of this 
reckless material collected in a place called the Haymarket, and were about to begin the 
usual inflammatory proceedings, when a band of policemen, mostly ofiScers, drew near, with 
the evident purpose of controlling or dispersing the meeting. 

A terrible scene ensued. Dynamite bombs were thrown from the crowd and exploded 
among the officers, several of whom were blown to pieces and others shockingly mangled. 
The mob was, in turn, attacked by the police, and many of the insurgents were shot down. 
Order was presently restored in the city; several of the leading Anarchists were arrested, 
brought to trial, condemned, and executed on the charge of inciting to murder. ]\Iany pre- 
cautionary measures were also taken to prevent the recurrence of such tragedies as had been 
witnessed in the Haymarket Square. On the following day a similar, though less danger- 
ous outbreak occurred in Milwaukee; but in this city the insurrectionary,- movement wa.s 
suppressed without serious loss of life. The attention of the American people — let us hope 



f 



EP^CH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 495' 

to some good end — was recalled, as never before, to the dangerous relations existing between 
the upper and nether sides of our municipal populations. 

THE CHARLESTON EARTHQUAKE. 

The summer of 1886 was memorable in American annals, on account of that great 
natural phenomenon known as the Charleston Earthquake. On the night of the 31st of 
August, at ten minutes before ten o clock, it was discovered at Washington City, and at 
several other points where weathex ind signal stations were established, that communica- 
tion with Charleston, South Carolina, 'as sadder iy cut off. The discovery was made by 
inquiries relative to the origin of ^^ o^xuck which had that moment been felt, with varying 
degrees of violence, throughout nearly the whole country east of the Mississippi and south 
of the Great Lakes. In a few minutes it was found that no telegraphic communication 
from any side could be had with Charleston, and it was at once perceived that that city had 
sufifered from the convulsion. Measures were hastily devised for further investigation, and 
the result showed that the worst apprehensions were verified. Without a moment's warn- 
ing the city had been rocked and rent to its ver)' foundations. Hardly a building in the 
limits of Charleston, or in the country surrounding, had escaped serious injury, and perhaps 
one-half of all were in a state of semi-wreck or total ruin. With the exception of the great 
earthquake of New Madrid, in 181 1, no other such scene of devastation and terror had ever 
been witnessed within the limits of the United States. 

Many scientists of national reputation hurried to the scene, and made a careful scrutiny 
of the phenomena, with a view of contributing something to the exact knowledge of man- 
kind respecting the causes and character of earthquakes. A few facts and principles were 
determined with tolerable accuracy. One was, that the point of origin, called the epicentre^ 
of the great convulsion had been at a place about twenty miles from Charleston, and that 
the motion of the earth immediately over this centre had been nearly up and down — that is, 
vertical. A second point, tolerably well established, was that the isoseismic lines, or lines 
of equal disturbance, might be drawn around the epicentre in circles very nearly concentric, 
and that the circle of greatest disturbance was at some distance from the centre. Still a 
third item of knowledge tolerably well established was that away from the epicentre — as 
illustrated in the ruins of Charleston — the agitation of the earth was not in the nature of a 
single shock or convulsion, as a dropping or sliding of the region to one side, but rather a 
series of very quick and violent oscillations, by which the central country of the disturb- 
ance was, in the course of some five minutes, settled somewhat to seaward. 

The whole coast in the central region of the shock was modified with respect to the 
sea, and the ocean itself was thrown into turmoil for leagues from the shore. The people 
of the city were in a state of the utmost consternation. They fled from their falling houses 
to the public squares and parks and far into the country. Afraid to return into the ruins 
they threw up tents and light booths for protection, and abode for weeks away from their 
homes. 

The disaster to Charleston ser\'ed to bring out some of the better qualities of our civiliza- 
tion. Assistance came from all quarters, and contributions poured in for the support and 
encouragement of the afflicted people. For several weeks a series of diminishing shocks con- 
tinued to terrify the citizens and paralyze the efforts at restoration. But it was discovered 
in the course of time that these shocks were only the dying away of the great convulsion, 
and that they gave cause for hope of entire cessation rather than continued alarm. In the 
lapse of a few months the debris was cleared away, business was resumed, and the people 
were again safe in their homes. 



496 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

On the 4th of March, 1887, the second session of the Forty-ninth Congress expired by 
statutory limitation. The work of the body had not been so fruitful of results as had been 
desired and anticipated by the friends of the government; but some important legislation 
had been effected. On the question of the tariff nothing of value was accomplished. True, 
a serious measure of revenue refonn had been brought forward at an early date in the 
session, but owing to the opposition of that wing of the Democratic party headed by 
Samuel J. Randall, and committed to the doctrine of protection, as well as to the antago- 
nism of the Republican majority in the Senate, the act failed of adoption. In fact, by the 
beginning of 1887, it had become apparent that the existing political parties could not be 
forced to align on the issue of free trade and tariff, and as a result no legislation looking to 
any actual refonn in the current revenue system of the United States could be carried 
through Congress. 

THE PENSION LIST. 

On the question of extending the Pension List, however, the case was different. A 
great majority of both parties could always be counted on to favor such measures as looked 
to the increase of benefits to the soldiers. At the first only a limited number of pensions 
had been granted, and these only to actually disabled and injured veterans of the war for 
the Union. With the lapse of time, however, and the relaxation of party allegiance, it 
became more and more important to each of the parties to secure and hold the soldier vote, 
without which it was felt that neither could maintain ascendancy in the government. Nor 
can it be denied that genuine patriotic sentiment and gratitiide of the Nation to its defenders 
coincided in this respect with political ambition and selfishness. The Arrears of Pensions 
Act, making up to those who were already recipients of pensions such amounts as would 
have accrued if the benefit had dated from the time of disability, instead of from the time 
of granting the pension, was passed in 1879, and, at the same time, the list of beneficiaries 
was greatly enlarged. 

The measure presented in the Forty-ninth Congress was designed to extend the Pension 
List so as to include all regularly enlisted and honorably discharged soldiers of the Civil War, 
who had become, in whole or in part, dependent upon the aid of others for their maintenance 
and welfare. The measure was known as the Dependent Pensions Bill, and though many 
opposed the enactment of a law which appeared to fling away the bounty of the government 
to the deserving and undeserving, the evil and the just alike, yet a majority was easily 
obtained for the measure in both Houses, and the act was passed. President Cleveland, 
however, interposed his veto, and the proposed law fell to the ground. An effort was made 
in the House of Representatives to pass the bill over the veto, but the movement failed. 

THE INTERSTATE COMMERCE BILL. 

By far the most important and noted piece of legislation of the session was embodied 
in the act known as the Interstate Commerce Bill. For some fifteen years complaints 
against the methods and management of the railways of the United States had been heard 
on many sides, and in cases not a few the complaints had originated in actual abuses, some 
of which were wilful, but most were merely incidental to the development of a system so 
vast and, on the whole, so beneficial to the public. In such a state of affairs the lasting 
benefit is always forgotten in the accidental hurt. That large class of people who, in despite 
of the teachings of history', still believe in the cure of all things by law, and that mankind 
are always about to perish for want of more legislation, became clamorous in their demand 
that Congress should take the railways by the throat and compel them to accept what may 
be called the system of uniformity as it respects all charges for service rendered. 



EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 497 

It must be borne in mind that in the very nature of things railways are unable to carry 
freight at as small a rate per hundred, or passengers at as small a charge per mile, between 
places approximate as between places at great distances. It must be remembered, also, 
that in some regions it is many times more expensive to build and operate a road than iu 
others. To carry one of these great thoroughfares over the Rocky Mountains is a verj 
different thing from stretching a similar track across the level prairies of Illinois. It musl 
still further be considered that, in the nature of the case, competition will do its legitimate 
and inevitable work at an earlier date and more thoroughly between great cities, even when 
remotely situated, than between unimportant points, however near together. The traffic 
and travel between two villages is not sufficient to create competition among carriers. It is 
as absurd to suppose that railway tariffs can be the same between New York and Chicago 
as they are between two Missouri towns as it is to suppose that butter can command the 
same price in an Iowa village that it does in the Quincy Market of Boston. What should 
be said of an attempt in Congress to make the price of wheat and pork uniform throughout 
the United States ? 

The Interstate Commerce Bill was conceived against all the natural, manifest and 
undeniable principles of the commercial world. It was passed with the belief that all dis- 
criminations in the charges made by railways doing business in more than one State could 
be prevented by law. It was passed as if to amend or abrogate those natural laws of trade 
and traffic which, in their kind, are as absolute and beneficial as the law of gravitation. 
It was passed with the ulterior design of securing to its promoters the support of that ignor- 
ant and embittered race of men whose prejudices are out of all proportion to their know- 
ledge of human rights, or their recognition of the paramount interests of the whole people. 
It was passed under the pernicious anti-democratic theor}- of governmental paternalism, 
which says that men are infants or imbeciles, unable to care for themselves unless they are 
fed and led and coddled by some motherly government, of which they are the irresponsible 
offspring. It is safe to say that no other measure ever adopted by the American Congress 
was so difficult of application, or was so barren of results with respect to the interests 
which it was intended to promote. Disorder was the first-born of the Interstate Commerce 
Bill, and its last offspring was — Apathy. 

ISSUES OF THE CAMPAIGN OF i8S8. 

During the whole of Cleveland's Administration the public mind was swayed and 
■excited by the movements of politics. The universality of partisan newspapers, the com- 
bination in their columns of all the news of the world with the invectives, misrepresenta- 
tions, and counter-charges of party leaders, kept political questions constantly uppermost, 
to the detriment of social progress and industrial interests. Scarcely had President Cleve- 
land entered upon his office as Chief Magistrate when the question of succession to the 
presidency was agitated. The echoes of the election of 1884 had not died away before the 
fising murmur of 1888 was heard. 

' By the last year of the current Administration it was seen that there would be no general 
break-up of the existing parties. It was also perceived that the issues between them must 
be tnade^ rather than found in the existing state of affairs. The sentiment in the United 
States in favor of the Constitutional prohibition of the manufacture and sale of intoxicating 
liquors had become somewhat extended and intensified since the last quadrennial election. 
But the discerning eye might perceive that the real issue was between the Republican and 
Democratic parties, and that the questions involved were to be rather those of the past than 
of the future. 

.S2 



498 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. H 

One issue, however, presented itself which had a living and practical relation to 
affairs, and that was the question of Protection to American Industry. Since the campaign 
of 1884, the agitation had been gradually extended. At the opening of the session in 1887, A| 
the President, in his annual message to Congress, departed from all precedent, and devoted "' 
the whole document to the discussion of the single question of a Reform of the Revemte 
Systetn of the United States. The existing rates of duty on imported articles of commerce 
had so greatly augmented the income of the Government that a large surplus had accumu- 
lated, and was still accumulating, in the National Treasurv. This fact was made the basis ■ 
of the President's argument in favor of a new system of revenue, or, at least, an ample ll 
reduction in the tariff rates under the old. It was immediately charged by the Republicans | 
that the project in question meant the substitution of the system of free trade in the United ; 
States, as against the system of protective duties. The question thus involved was made | 
the bottom issue in the presidential campaign of 1888. , 

As to the nominees of the various parties, it was from the first a foregone conclusion 
that Mr. Cleveland would be nominated for re-election by the Democrats. The result justi- 
fied the expectation. The Democratic National Convention was held in St. Louis, on the 5th 
day of June, 1888, and Mr. Cleveland was renominated by acclamation. For the Vice- j 
presidential nomination there was a considerable contest; but after some balloting the choice ! 
fell on ex-Senator Allan G. Thurman, of Ohio. The Republican National Convention was 
held in Chicago, on the 19th day of Jime. Many candidates were ardently pressed upon the 
body, and the contest was long and spirited. It was believed up to the time of the Con- ' 
vention that James G. Blaine, who was evidently the favorite of the great majority, would be 
again nominated for the presidency. But the antagonisms against that statesman in his own 
party were thought to make it inexpedient to bring him forward again as the nominee. His 
name was, accordingh- — at his own request — not presented to the convention. The most \ 
prominent candidates were Senator John Sherman, of Ohio; Judge Walter Q. Gresham, of 
Chicago; Chauncey ]\I. Depew, of New York; ex-Governor Russell A. Alger, of Michigan; 
ex-Senator Benjamin Harrison, of Indiana, and Senator William B. Allison, of Iowa. The 
voting was continued to the eighth ballot, when the choice fell upon Benjamin Harrison, of 
Indiana. In the evening, Levi P. Morton, of New York, was nominated for the vice- 
presidency on the first ballot. 

In the meantime, the Prohibition party had held its National Convention at Indian- 
apolis, and on the 30th of May had nominated for the presidency General Clinton B. Fisk, 
of New Jersey, and for the vice-presidency John A. Brooks, of Missouri. The Democratic 
platfonn declared for a reform of the revenue system of the United States, and reaffirmed 
the principle of adjusting the tariff on imports, with strict regard to the actual needs of 
governmental expenditure. The Republican platfonn declared also for a reform of the 
tariff schedule, but at the same time stoutly affinned the maintenance of the protective, 
system, as such, as a part of the permanent policy of the United States. Both parties 
deferred to the patriotic sentiment of the countr>- in favor of the soldiers, their rights and 
interests, and both endeavored, by the usual incidental circumstances of the hour, to gain 
the advantage of the other before the American people. The Prohibitionists entered the 
campaign on the distinct proposition that the manufacture and sale of into.xicating liquors 
should be prohibited throughout the United States by constitutional amendment. To this 
was added a clause in favor of extending the right of suffrage to women. 



EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 499 

ELECTION OF HARRISON. 

As the canvass progressed during the summer and autumn of 1888, it became evident 
that the result was in doubt. The contest was exceedingly close. As in 1880 and 1884, 
the critical States were New York, Connecticut, New Jersey and Indiana. In all of the other 
Northern States the Republicans were almost certain to win, while the Democrats were 
equally certain of success in all the South. In the last weeks of the campaign, General 
Harrison grew in favor, and his party gained perceptibly to the close. The result showed 
success for the Republican candidate. He received two hundred and thirty-three electoral 
votes, against one hundred and sixty-eight votes for Cleveland. The latter, however, 
appeared to a better advantage on the popular count, having a considerable majority over 
General Harrison. General Fisk, the Prohibition candidate, received nearly three hundred 
thousand votes, but under the system of voting no electoral vote of any State was obtained 
for him in the so-called "College" by which the actual choice is made. As soon as the 
result was known the excitement attendant upon the campaign subsided and political ques- 
tions gave place to other interests. 

The last days of Cleveland's administration and of the Fiftieth Congress were signalized 
by the admission into the Union of four new States, making the number forty-two. Since 
the incoming of Colorado, in 1876, no State had been added to the Republic. Meanwhile 
the tremendous tides of population had continued to flow to the West and Northwest, rapidly 
filling up the great territories. Of these the greatest was Dakota, with its area of one 
hundred and fifty thousand nine hundred and thirty-two square miles. In 1887 the ques- 
tion of dividing the territory by a line running east and west was agitated, and the measure 
finally prevailed. Steps were taken by the people of both sections for admission into the 
Union. Montana, with her one hundred and forty-five thousand seven hundred and seventy- 
six square miles of territory, had meanwhile acquired a sufiicient population; and Wash- 
ington Territory-, with its area of si.xty-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-four square 
miles, also knocked for admission. In the closing days of the Fiftieth Congress a bill was 
passed raising all these four territories — South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana and Wash- 
ington — to the plane of Statehood. The Act contemplated the adoption of State Constitu- 
tions and a proclamation of admission by the next President. It thus happened that the 
honor of bringing in this great addition to the States of the Union was divided between the 
outgoing and incoming administrations. 

Another Act of Congress was also of National importance. Hitherto the government 
had been administered through seven departments, at the head of each of which was placed 
a Cabinet officer, the seven together constituting the advisers of the President. No pro- 
vision for such an arrangement exists in the Constitution of the United States, but the 
statutes of the Nation provide for such a system as most in accordance with the Republican 
fonn of government. Early in 1889 a measure was brought forward in Congress, and 
adopted, for the institution of a new department, to be called the Department of Agricul- 
ture. Practically the measure involved the elevation of what had previously been aa 
agricultural bureau in the Department of the Interior to the rank of a Cabinet office. 
Among foreign nations, France has been conspicuous for the patronage which the govern- 
ment has given to the agricultural pursuits of that country. Hitherto in the United States, 
though agriculture had been the greatest of all the producing interests of the people, it had 
been neglected for more political and less useful departments of American life and enter- 
prise. By this act of Congress the Cabinet offices were increased in number to eight instead 
of seven. 



CHAPTER XXXI. 



HARRISON'S ADMINISTRATION. 




ENJAMIN HARRISON, twenty-third President of tfie 
United States, was born at North Bend, Ohio, on the 
20th of August, 1833. He is the son of John Scott 
Harrison, a prominent citizen of his native State ; grand- 
son of President William Henry Harrison ; great-grand- 
son of Benjamin Harrison, signer of the Declaration of 
Independence. In countries where attention is paid to 
honorable lineage, the circumstances of General Harri- 
son's descent would be considered of much importance, 
but in America little attention is paid to one's ancestry 
and more to himself. 

Harrison's early life was passed as that of other 
American boys, in attendance at school and at home 
duties on the farm. He was a student at the institution called Fanners' College for two 
years. Afterwards he attended Miami University, at Oxford, Ohio, and was graduated 
therefrom in June, 1852. He took in marriage the daughter of Dr. John W. Scott, Presi- 
dent of the Oxford Female College. After a course of study he entered the profession of 
law, removing to Indianapolis and establishing himself in that city. With the outbreak 
of the war he became a soldier of the Union, and rose to the rank of Brevet Brigadier- 
General of Volimteers. Before the close of the war he was elected Reporter of Decisions 
of the Supreme Court of Indiana. 

In the period following the Civil War, General Harrison rose to distinction as a civilian. 
In 1876 he was the imsuccessful candidate of the Republican party for governor of Indiana. 
In 1881 he was elected to the United States Senate, where he won the reputation of a leader 
and statesman. In 1884 his name was prominently mentioned in connection with the 
presidential nomination of his party, but Mr. Blaine was successful. After the lapse of four 
years, however, it was found at Chicago that General Harrison more than any other combined 
in himself all the elements of a successful candidate; and the event justified the choice of 
the party in making him the standard-bearer in the ensuing campaign. 

General Harrison was, in accordance with the usages of the government, inaugurated 
President on the 4th of March, 1889. He had succeeded better than any of his predecessors 
in keeping his own counsels during the interim between his election and the inauguration. 
No one had discerned his purposes, and all waited with interest the expressions of his 
Inaugural Address. In that document he set forth the policy which he would favor as the 
Chief Executive, recommending the same general measures which the Republican party 
had advocated during the campaign. 

On the day following the inaugural ceremonies, President Harrison sent in the nomi- 
nations for his Cabinet officers, as follows : For Secretary of State, James G. Blaine, of 
Maine; for Secretary of the Treasury, William Windom, of Minnesota; for Secretary of 




BENJAMIN HARRISON. 



iSoi) 



502 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

War, Redfield Proctor, of Vermont; for Secretary of the Navy, Benjamin F. Tracy, of 
New York; for Postmaster-General, John Wanamaker, of Pennsylvania; for Secretary- of the 
Interior, John W. Noble, of Missonri; for Attorney-General, William H. H. Miller, of 
Indiana, and for Secretary of Agriculture, — the new department — Jeremiah Rusk, of Wis- 
consin. These appointments were immediately confirmed by the Senate, and the members 
of the new administration assumed their respective official duties. 

Within two months after Harrison's inauguration, an event occurred which recalled 
the mind of the American people to the striking incidents of the Revolutionar}- epoch. 
The event in question was the great Centennial Celebration of the Institution of the 
American Republic. The particular date selected was the 3Cth of April, 1889, being the 
centennial anniversary of the inauguration of Washington, at New York City. All of the 
ceremonies connected with the commemoration in 1889 were associated, as far as practicable, 
with the scenes of the first inauguration. The event was so interesting and so distinctly 
National as to warrant a few paragraphs descriptive of the incidents of the celebration. 

EPOCHS IN OUR NATIONAL LIFE. 

The Revolutionary epoch in the history of tlie United States was marked by several 
crises worthy of commemoration by people of another age. These periods were : 

1. The Declaration of Independence. 

2. The formation of the Constitution of the United States. 

3. The adoption of the Constitution by the States. 

4. The institution of the American Republic. 

Of the first of these crises we should note the fact that the Declaration of Independence 
was a democratic and popular revolution. It was essentialh- destructive in character. It 
was designed to break the luiion with the Mother Country, to throw off the fetters — real or 
imaginar\ — which bound us to the Old-World order. 

The second, or Constitutional crisis, was reactionary and constructive. It was the 
epoch of formation. The Fathers, acting from sentiments of common motive and common 
hope, began to consult about rebuilding, or building anew, a structure in which civil liberty 
in .\merica might abide. Washington and his friends earnestly debated the feasibilit\' of 
a s\stem of government better than the old Confederation. The first conferences looking 
to this end were held at Mount \'err.on, and then at Annapolis. Finally a great conven- 
tion of delegates was assembled at Philadelphia. The sittings were held in the summer of 
1787. That strange compromise called the Constitution of the United States was produced 
and signed by the delegates, with Washington as their President. 

This work was followed by a great political agitation. Should the new Constitution 
be adopted ; or, should it be rejected and the old Confederate system be continued ? On 
these questions there was a division of parties, the lines of which have not been wholly 
obliterated to the present day. 

The story of the adoption of the Constitution has already been given in its own place 
in the preceding narrative. After the adoption by nine or ten States, came the striking 
event of the institution of the new government. Wa.shington was made President. A 
Congress was constituted by an election of a House of Representatives and a Senate, 
according to the provisions of the new instrument. The actual setting-up of the govern- 
ment occurred on the 30th of April, 1789. This was the particular event which, after a 
lapse of a hundred years, the people and go\ernment of the United States detennined to 
celebrate with suitable centennial and commemorative exercises. 



EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 503 

It was decided that the intended celebration should confonn as nearly as possible to the 
ceremonies attending the actual inauguration of Washington. There was a departure from 
the type of World's Fairs which had already been celebrated several times in Europe and 
America. In the commemoration of the institution of the government the feature of expo- 
sition was wholly omitted. Everything was designed to point backwards to the events of 
a century ago, and to bring to vivid recollection the manners and condition of the American 
people when the republic of 1789 was instituted. 

CELEBRATION OF THE INSTITUTION OF THE REPUBLIC. 

The movement for the celebration began in New York City. A committee was raised 
and a plan outlined for the coming event. It was decided to devote two days, namely the 
30th of April and the ist of May, 1889, to the celebration. Everything was accordingly 
arranged for a great military and civic parade in New York on the days indicated. For a 
fortnight before the event the great trains on the railways centring in the metropolis began 
to pour out an unusual cargo of human life. The throngs were gathered from all parts of 
the republic, but principally from the old Thirteen States. 

The rise of the Centennial morning was auspicioiis, and the general appearance of New 
York City was such as to e.xcite the liveliest admiration. Never was a great city more 
completely clad in gay apparel. Every street on both sides as far as the eye could reach 
was ornamented with flags and streamers, mottoes and emblems of jubilee. Broadway and 
Fifth Avenue were the most elaborately adorned. It is doubtful whether a finer display has 
ever been made in the streets of any cit)-. The decorations covered all public and private 
edifices. Scarcely a house on Manhattan Island but had its share in the display. Could 
one have been lifted in a balloon above Castle Garden, sweeping northward with his glass, 
he would have seen flags on flags from the Battery to Spuyten Duyvil. Along both sides 
of the North and East Rivers, and in the islands of the bay, the universal emblems were 
flung to the breeze, and the purest of sunshine glorified the scene with a blaze of morning 
light. 

Arrangements had been made for the President, Vice-President and members of the 
Cabinet, with other prominent officers of the government, to participate in the exercises. 
The part assigned President Harrison was the part of Washington in the first inauguration. 
On the arrival of the Chief Magistrate, he was tendered a public reception at several places 
in the city. In the evening he attended a great ball in the Metropolitan Opera House, 
prepared in imitation of the Washingtonian ball of 1789. 

On the morning of the 30th of April, the streets of New York quickly filled with 
people. The exercises in commemoration of the institution of the government were held 
in Wall Street, where a platform had been erected in front of the Treasury building, 
occupying the site of the Old Federal Hall, and marked by the presence of Ward's colossal 
statue of Washington, on the spot where the Father of his Country had been inaugurated. 
Here was delivered the Centennial Oration, by Chauncey M. Depew, an address by Presi- 
dent Harrison, and a poem written for the occasion by John Greenleaf Whittier. Mean- 
while, the military parade, greatest of all such displays in the United States with the single 
exception of the review of the soldiers at Washington at the close of the Civil War, had 
been prepared for the march. The procession was under the command of Major-General 
John M. Schofield. The line of march was from Wall Street into Broadway, up Broadway 
to Waverly Place, through Waverly Place into Fifth Avenue, along that thoroughfare to 
Fourteenth Street, thence around Union Square to Fifth Avenue, and thence northward to 
Central Park. 



504 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Through all this distance and on both sides of the procession the streets were a solid 
wall of human beings, rising to the rear by ever}' kind of contrivance which ingenuity 
could invent. The mass on the sidewalks was from twenty to fifty persons deep. In all 
advantageous positions scaffolding with ascending seats had been erected for the accommo- 
dation of the multitudes. At ever}' street crossing vehicles were drawn up in a solid mass, 
and the privilege of standing in these or on boxes or carts was sold at high figures to eager 
people not better provided with a point of view. Housetops, balconies, stoops, and 
verandas were crowded to their utmost capacity. On came the procession, headed by the 
President and the commanding general. At the head of the column were two thousand 
regulars from the army. Then came the cadets from West Point, with their splendid 
marching ; then the artiller}- of the regular ann}' ; then the marines and naval cadets, whose 
peculiar rolling movement showed that they had been recently gathered from the decks of 
ships. 

After this division came the militiamen and volunteers of the National Guards from 
the different States of the Union. Behind this magnificent display followed the veterans 
of the Civil War — the men of the Grand Army of the Republic, headed by their comman- 
der-in-chief. General William Warner. The old soldiers were in column to the number of 
twelve thousand, arranged according to the locality from which they came, the rear being 
closed with a magnificent body numbering nearly four thousand from Brooklyn and 
Kings County, New York. It was already nightfall when this extreme left of the column 
passed the reviewing stand on Fifth Avenue, where the President and the chief men of the 
Nation were gathered. 

The programme prepared by the Citizens' Committee embraced a general holiday of 
three days' duration, during which business was suspended throughout the city. On the 
29th and 30th of April and on the ist day of May the restriction was faithfully regarded. 
One might traverse Broadway and find but few business establishments open to the public. 
This was trije particularly of the two principal days of the festival. 

THE GREAT CIVIC DISPLAY. 

It now remains to notice the great civic parade on the ist of May, with which the 
commemorative exercises were concluded. The design was that this should represent the 
industries, the progress, and in general the civic life of the Metropolis of the Nation and 
of the country at large, as distinguished from the military display of the preceding day. 
It was found from the experience of the 30th that the line of march was too long, and the 
second day's course was somewhat shorter. It is not intended in this connection to enter 
into any elaborate account of the civic procession of the third day. It was second only in 
importance to the great militar}- parade which had preceded it. The procession was 
composed, in large part, of those various civic orders and brotherhoods with which modem 
society so much aboimds. In these the foreign nationalities which have obtained so strong 
a footing in New York Cit}' were largely prevalent. The German societies were out in full 
force. Companies representing almost every nation of the Old World were in the line,' 
carrying gay banners, keeping step to the music of the magnificent bands, and proudly 
lifting their mottoes and emblems in the May-day morning. 

The second general feature of this procession was the historical part. The primitive 
life of Manhattan Island, the adventures of the early explorers and discoverers along the 
American coast, the striking incidents in the early annals of the Old Thirteen States, were 
allegorized and mounted in visible form on chariots and drawn through the streets. All 
the old heroes of American history from Columbus to Peter Stuyvesant were seen again in 



EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 505 

mortal form, received obeisance, and heard the shouts of the multitudes. From.tfen o'clock in 
the forenoon till half-past three in the afternoon the procession was under way, the principal 
line of march being down Fifth Avenue and through the noted squares of the city. 
With the coming of evening the pyrotechnic display of the preceding night was renewed in 
many parts of the metropolis, though it could hardly be said that the fire-works were equal 
in brilliancy, beauty and impressiveness to the magnificent day-pageants of the streets. 

One of the striking features of the celebration was the ease and rapidity with which the 
vast multitudes were breathed into and breathed out of the city. In the principal hotels 
fully one hundred and fifty thousand strangers were registered as guests. More than twice 
this number was distributed in the smaller lodging houses and private dwellings of New 
York and Brooklyn. Yet the careful observer abroad in the streets saw neither the coming 
nor the going. With the appearance of the days of the celebration the throngs were 
present ; on the following days they were gone. The great railways centring in the 
metropolis had done their work noiselessly, speedily, eflfectively. It may well be recorded 
as one of the marvels of modern times that only two persons are said to have lost their lives 
in this tremendous assemblage, extending through several days, and that at least one of 
these died suddenly from heart disease, while the manner of the death of the other was 
unknown. Such is the triumph which the master^' of the human mind over the forces of 
the material world has easily achieved in our age, under the guidance of that beneficent 
science by which the world is at once enlightened and protected from danger. 

THREATENINGS OF WAR BETWEEN GERMANY AND AMERICA. 

The close of the year 1888 and the beginning of 1S89 were marked by a peculiar epi- 
sode in the history of the country. An unexpected and even dangerous complication arose 
between the United States and Germany relative to the Samoan Islands. This compara- 
tively unimportant group of the South Pacific lies in a southwesterly direction, at a dis- 
tance of about five thousand miles from San Francisco, and nearly two thousand miles 
eastward from Australia. The long-standing policy of the government established under 
the administration of Washington and ever since maintained, to have no entanglements 
with foreign nations, seemed in this instance to be strangely at variance with the facts. 

During 1888 the civil aifairs of the Samoan Islands were thrown into extreme confu- 
sion by what was really the progressive disposition of the people, but what appeared in the 
garb of an insurrection against the established authorities. The government of the islands 
is a monarchy. The country is ruled by native princes, and is independent of foreign 
powers. The capital, Apia, lies on a bay of the same name on the northern coast of the 
principal island. It was here that the insurrection gained greatest headway. 

The revolutionary movement was headed by an audacious chieftain called Tamasese. 
The king of the island was Malietoa, and his chief supporter, Mataafa. At this time, the 
German Empire was represented in Samoa by its Consul-General, Herr Weber, and the 
United States was represented by Hon. Harold M. Sewall. A German armed force virtu- 
ally deposed Malietoa and set up Tamasese on the throne. On the other hand, the repre- 
sentative of the United States, following the policy of his government, stood by the estab- 
lished authority, supporting the native sovereign and Mataafa. The American and German 
authorities in the island were thus brought into conflict, and serious difficulties occurred 
between the ships of the two nations in the harbor. 

When the news of this state of affairs reached Gennany, in April, 1889, several addi- 
tional men-of-war were sent out to the island to uphold the German cause. Mataafa and 



5o6 PEOPLE'vS HISTORY OF THE UNITED vSTATES. 

the Germans were thus brought to war. Meanwhile the American government took up 
the cause of its Consul and of King Malietoa, as against the insurrection. A section of 
the American navy was despatched to the distant island, and the ships of war of two of the 
greatest nations of Christendom were thus set face to face in a harbor of the South Pacific 
Ocean. 

In this condition of affairs, on the 2 2d of March, 1889, one of the most violent hurri- 
canes ever known in the islands blew up from the north, and the American and Gemian 
war vessels were driven upon the great reef which constitutes the only breakwater outside 
of the harbor of Apia. Here they were wrecked. The American war-ships A^ips/c, Trentoti 
and Vandalia were dashed into ruins. The German vessels, Adler, Olga and Eber^ were 
also lost. The English vessel Calliope^ which was caught in the stonn, was the only war 
ship which escaped, by steaming out to sea. Serious loss of life accompanied the disaster: 
four American officers and forty-six men, nine Gennan officers and eighty-seven men, sank 
to rise no more. 

Meanwhile England had become interested in the dispute and had taken a stand with 
the United States as against the decision of Germany. The matter became of so great 
importance that President Harrison, who had in the meantime acceded to office as Chief 
Magistrate, appointed, with the advice of the Senate, an Embassy Extraordinary to go to 
Berlin and meet Prince Bismarck in a conference, with a view to a peaceful solution of the 
difficulty. The Ambassadors appointed for this purpose were J. A. Kasson, of Iowa; 
William W. Phelps, of New Jersey ; and G. H. Bates, of Delaware. The Commissioners 
set out on the 13th of April, and on their arrival at the capital of the German Empii'e 
opened negotiations with Chancellor Bismarck and his son. Tlie attitude and demand 
of the American government was that the independence of Samoa under its native sover- 
eign shotild be acknowledged and guaranteed by the great nations concerned in the contro- 
versy. The conference closed in May, 1889, with the restoration of King ;\Ialietoa and the 
recognition of his sovereignty over the island. 

THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD. 

The closing week of INIay, 1889, was made forever memorable in the histor\- of the 
United States by the destruction of Johnstown, Pennsylvania. The calamity was caused 
by the bursting of a reservoir and tlie pouring out of a deluge in the valley below. A large 
artificial lake had been constructed in the ravine of the South Pork River, a tributary' of 
the Coneinaugh. It was a fishing lake, the propertv of a company of wealthy sportsmen, 
and was about five miles in length, varying in depth from fift^• to one hundred feet. The 
countr\- below the lake was thickly peopled. The cit)- of Johnstown lay at the jiniction of 
the South Fork with the Conemaugh. In the last days of Ma>' iniu.sually heavy rains fell 
in all that region, swelling every stream to a torrent. The South Fork Lake became full 
to overflowing. The dam had been imperfectly constructed. On the afternoon of May 
31st the dam of the reservoir burst wide open in the centre, and a .solid wall of water y;vwz 
twoity to fifty feet in height ru.shed down the valley with terrific violence. 

The destruction which ensued was as great as the modern world has witnessed. In the 
path of the deluge everything was swept away. Johnstown was totally wrecked and was 
thrown in an indescribable heap of horror against the aqueduct of tlie Pennsylvania railway 
below the town. Here the ruins caught fire, and the shrieks of hundreds of victims were 
drowned in the holocaust. About three thousand people perished in the flood or were 
burned to death in the ruins. The heart of the Nation responded quickly to the sufferings 
of the survivors, and millions of dollars in money and supplies were poured out to relieve 
the despair of those wiio survived the calamity. 







^4"^' \A^.J . I 



- L„JlP"i"' ,151 



(507) 



5oS PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

The year 1889 witnessed the assembling at Washington City of an International Con- 
gress. The body was composed of delegates from the Central and South American States, 
from Mexico, and the United States of America. Popularly the assembly was known as 
the " Pan-American Congress." The event was the culmination of a policy adopted by the 
United States some years previously. General Grant, during his presidency and in the 
subsequent period of his life, had endeavored to promote more intimate relations with the 
Spanish-American peoples. James G. Blaine, Secretary of State under Garfield, entertained 
a similar ambition and was the principal promoter of the enterprise. The opposition to the 
movement was based on prejudice — mostly political. Mr. Blaine was accused unjustly of a 
purpose to create in the United States a policy similar to Disraeli's "high-jingoism " in 
Great Britain. The United States was to become the arbiter of the Western nations. To 
this end the Central American and South American States must be brought, first into inti- 
macy with our Republic, and afterwards be made to follow her lead in warding oif all 
Europeanism. 

The death of Garfield prevented the institution of some such polic}' as that here vaguely 
defined. Nevertheless, in 1884, an Act was passed by Congress authorizing the President 
to appoint a commission ' ' to ascertain and report upon the best modes of securing more 
intimate international commercial relations between the United States and the several coun- 
tries of Central and South America." Commissioners were sent out to the countries referred 
to, and the movement for the Congress was started. Not until May of 1 888, however, was 
the Act passed providing for the Congress. The Spanish- American nations responded to the 
overtures and took the necessary steps to meet the United States in the conference. The 
objects contemplated were, first, to promote measures pertaining to the peace and prosperity 
of the peoples concerned ; to establish customs-unions among them ; to improve the means 
of communication between the ports of the States represented, and to advance the commer- 
cial interests and political hannony of the nations of the New World. 

ASSEMBLING OF THE PAN -AMERICAN CONGRESS. 

The Spanish-American and Portuguese-American States, to the number of nine, 
appointed their delegates, and the latter arrived in the United States in the autumn of 1889. 
President Harrison on his part named ten members of the Congress as follows : John F. 
Hanson, of Georgia ; Morris M. Estee, of California ; Henry G. Davis, of West Virginia ; 
Andrew Carnegie, of Pennsylvania ; T Jefferson Coolidge, of Massachusetts ; Clement 
Studebaker, of Indiana ; Charles R. Flint, of New York ; William H. Trescot, of South 
Carolina ; Cornelius N. Bliss, of New York, and John B. Henderson, of Missouri. Mexico 
sent two representatives, namely : Matias Romero and Enrique A. Maxia. Brazil, still an 
Empire, also sent two delegates : J. G. do Amaral Valente, and Salvador de Mendonca. 
The representative of Honduras was Jeronimo Zelaya ; Fernando Cruz, was delegate of 
Guatemala, and Jacinto Castellanos, of San Salvador. Costa Rica sent as her representative 
Manuel Aragon. Horatio Guzman, Minister of Nicaragua, represented his government in 
the Congress. The Argentine Republic had two delegates ; Roque Saenz Pena, and Manuel 
Quintana. Chili sent two delegates, Emilio C. Varas, and Jose Alfonso. The representa- 
tives of the United States of Colombia were Jose M. Hurtado, Carlos Martinez Silva, and 
Climaco Calderon. The delegates of Venezuela were Nicanor Bolet Peraza, Jose Andrade, 
and Francisco Antonio Silva ; that of Peru was F. C. C. Zegarra ; that of Ecuador, Jose 
Maria Placido Caamano ; that of Uruguay, Alberto Nin ; that of Bolivia, Juan F. Velarde ; 
that of Hayti, Arthur Laforestrie, and tliat of Paraguay, Jose S. Decoud. 



EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 509 

The representatives met in Washington City in October. Committees were formed to 
report to the body suitable action on the subjects which might properly come before it for 
discussion. From the first the proceedings took a peculiarly practical direction. The great 
questions of commerce were at the bottom of the reports, the debates and the actions which 
followed. Nor can it be doubted that the movement as a whole conduced in the highest 
degree to the friendship, prosperity and mutual interests of the nations concerned. 

At the same time an International Maritime Conference, for which provisions had been 
made in the legislation of several nations, convened at Washington. In this case the States 
of Europe were concerned in common with those of the New World. All the maritime 
nations were invited by the act of Congress to send representatives to the National Capital 
in the following year, to consider the possibility of establishing unifonn rules and regula- 
tions for the government of vessels at sea, and for the adoption of a common system of 
marine signals. Twenty-six nations accepted the call of the American government, and 
appointed delegates to the Congress. They, too, as well as the representatives of the Pan- 
American Congress, held their sittings in November and December of 1889. The same 
practical ability and good sense as related to the subjects under consideration were shown by 
the members of the Maritime Conference as by those of the sister body, and the results 
reached were equally encouraging and equally gratifying, not only to the government of 
the United States, but to all the countries whose interests were involved in the discussions. 
THE TARIFF DISPUTE RENEWED— THE McKINLEY BILL. 

We may here revert briefly to the work of the Fifty-first Congress. The proceedings 
of that branch of the government were marked with much partisan bitterness and excite- 
ment. The first question which occupied the attention of the body was the revision of the 
tariff. In the preceding pages we have developed, with sufficient amplitude, the history 
and various phases of this question. The Civil War brought in a condition of affairs which 
must, in the nature of the case, entail the tariff issue on the rest of the century. More 
than two decades elapsed after the close of the conflict before the attention of the American 
people was sufficiently aroused to the nature of the laws bearing on their industrial con- 
dition. Then it was that they first became aware of the fact that a schedule of customs 
duties, which had been brought forth under the exigency of war, st'll existed, and that 
under the operation of this schedule a vast array of protected industries had come into 
existence. Such industries had grown great and strong. Around them consolidated 
corporations had been fonned, having millions of money at their command and vast rami- 
fications into political society. As a consequence, the revenues of the United States were 
swollen to mountainous proportions. The treasury at Washington became engorged, and 
at length the necessity was developed of doing something in the nature of reform. 

The condition of affairs in the treasury — depending as it did upon the tariff system — 
entailed two prodigious evils : The surplus served as a motive in Congress for all manner 
of jobbery and extravagant expenditure. In the second place, it enabled the combined 
monopolies of the country to uphold themselves by affecting National legislation in favor of 
the protected industries and against the common interest of the people as a wliole. The 
situation was really a danger and constant menace. It was for this reason that President 
Cleveland, as already noted, sent his celebrated annual message to Congress touching upon 
the single question of the evils of the existing system, and asking that body to take such 
steps as should lead to a general refonn. 

We have already seen hosv this question was uppermost in the Presidential contest of 
tSSS. The Democratic platform boldly espoused the doctrine of tariff reform, but stopped 



5IO PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

short — out of an expedient deference to the manufacturing interests — of absolute free trade. 
The Republican platform declared for a revision of the tariff system — such a revision as 
might preserve the manufacturing interests, but favor those industries which seemed to be 
disparaged. This clause of the platform proved to be wonderfully effective in the political 
campaign. The event showed, however, that it was a shuffle. A very large part of the 
Republicans understood by "revision of the tariff" such legislation as should reduce and 
1-e/orin the existing system, not merely change it and adapt it to the interests of the pro- 
tected classes. 

With the opening of the Fifty-first Congress, it soon became apparent that "revision 
of the tariff" was not to mean a reform by reduction and curtailments of the schedule, but 
that the actual movement was in the other direction. Representative William McKinley, 
of Ohio, chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means, brought in a measure which 
passed into history under the name of the McKinley Bill, and which, finally adopted by 
the Republican majority, was incorporated as a part of the governmental system. The 
policy of the bill was to abolish the existing duties on a few great articles of production, 
particularly raw sugar and the lower grades of refined sugar. By this means a vast reduc- 
tion was secured in the aggregate revenues, notwithstanding the fact that the average rates 
of import duties on manufactured articles in general was raised from about forty-seven per 
cent, to more than fifty-three per cent. The McKinley Bill became, therefore, efficient by 
adroitly drawing to its principles the sympathies of the protected classes, and at the same 
time by throwing free — and therefore cheap — sugar to the people, attracted not a little 
popular sympathy. The contest over the measure was extreme in animosity, and the bill 
was adopted only after great delay. 

The sequel showed unusual results. The tariff legislation of the Fifty-first Congress 
was immediately attacked by the Democratic and Independent press of the countr)'. 
Opinion was overwhelmingly against it. The general elections of 1890 brought an 
astonishing verdict of the people against the late enactments. There was a complete 
political revulsion by which the Republican majority in the House of Representatives was 
replaced by a Democratic majority of nearh' three to one. At a later period a second 
reaction ensued somewhat favorable to the jMcKinley legislation, and the author of the 
measures referred to succeeded in being chosen, in 1891, governor of Ohio, attaining his 
position by a popular majority of over twenty thousand. 

EXCITEMENT OVER THE RULINGS OF SPEAKER REED. 

Another incident in the history of the same Congress relates to the serious difficulty 
which arose in the House of Representatives between the Democratic minority and the 
speaker, Thomas B. Reed, of Maine. The Republican majority in the Fifty-first House 
was not large, and the minority were easily able, in matters of party legislation, to break 
the quorum by refusing to vote. In order to counteract this policy, a new system of rules 
was reported, empowering the speaker to count the minority as present^ whether voting or 
not voting, and thus to compel a quorum. These rules were violently resisted by the 
Democrats, and Speaker Reed was denounced by his opponents as an unjust and arbitrary' 
officer. He was nick-named in the jargon of the times "The Czar," because of his 
rulings and strong-handed method of making the records of the House show a majority 
when no majority had actually voted on the pending questions. It was rmder the provision 
of the new rule that nearly all of the party measures of the Fifty-first Congress were 
adopted. 

One of the most important of these acts was the attempt to pass through Congress a 



EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 511 

measure bearing radically upon the election-system of the United States. A bill was 
reported by which it was proposed virtually to transfer the control of the Congressional 
elections in the States of the Union from State to National authority. It cannot be doubted 
that the measure reached down to the fundamental principles of American political society. 
The "Force Bill," as it was called, brought out the strongest passions of the day. The 
opposition was intense. The Republican party was by no means unanimous in support of 
the measure. A large part of the thinking people of the United States, without respect to 
political affiliation, doubted the expediency of this additional measure of centralization. 

Certain it was that serious and great abuses existed in the election systems of the 
States. In many parts of the United States elections were not \ee. In parts of the 
South tne old animosities against the political equality of the black man were still 
sufficiently vital to prevent the freedom of the ballot. Congressmen were many times 
chosen by a small minority who, from their social and political superiority, were able to 
baffle or intimidate the ignorant many at the polls. Such an abuse called loudly for a 
reform, but the measure proposed doubtless contained within itself the potent germs of 
abuses greater than those which it was sought to remove. The Elections Bill was for a 
long time debated in Congress, and was then laid over indefinitely in such manner as to 
prevent final action upon it. Certain Republican Senators who were opposed to the 
measure and at the same time strongly wedded to the cause of the free-coinage of silver 
money, joined their votes with the Democrats and the so-called "Force Bill" failed of 
adoption. 

THE SILVER QUESTION. 

The third great measure of the Fifty-first Congress was the attempt to restore silver to 
a perfect equality with gold in the coinage system of the United States. Since 1874 there 
had been an increasing departure in the market values of gold and silver bullion, though 
the purchasing power of the two money metals had been kept equal when the same were 
coined under the provisions of legal tender. The purchasing power of gold bullion had 
in the last fifteen years risen about sixteen per cent., while the purchasing power of silver 
bullion had fallen about four per cent, in the markets of the world, thus producing a differ- 
ence of twenty per cent, or more in the purchasing power of the two metals in bullion. 
One class of theorists, assuming that gold is the only standard of values, insisted that this 
difference in the purchasing power of the two raw metals had arisen wholly from a deprecia- 
tion in the price of silver. This class included the monometalists — those who desire that 
the monetary system of the United States shall be brought to the single standard of gold, 
and that silver shall be made wholly subsidiary to the richer metal. To this class belonged 
the fund-holding syndicates, and indeed all great creditors whose interest it is to have 
the debts due them discharged in as costly a dollar as possible. As a matter of course, if a 
debt be contracted on a basis of two metals, that fact gives to the debtor the valuable option 
of paying in the cheaper of two coins. This valuable option the people of the United 
States have enjoyed, greatly to their advantage and prosperity. The silver dollar has been 
for precisely a hundred years (with the exception of the quadrennium extending from 1874 
to 1878) the dollar of the law and the contract. It has never been altered or abridged to the 
extent of a fraction of a grain from the establishment of our system of money in 1792. It 
has, therefore, been, and continues to be, the lawful and undoubted unit of all money and 
account in the United States, just as much, and even more, than the gold dollar with which 
it is associated. If it be true, therefore, that there is a radical and irremediable departure 
in the value of these two metals — if it be true that we have, as monometalists assert, an 



512 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

<o-cent dollar — it is clearly and demonstrably true that we also have a " long dollar, " a 
dollar worth more than par^ a 1 20-cent dollar, which the creditor classes desire to have sub- 
stituted for the dollar of the law and the contract. 

The advocates of the free coinage of silver have argued that the difierence in the 
bullion values of the two money metals has arisen most largely from an increase in the pur- 
chasing power of gold, and that equal legislation and equal favor shown to the two money 
metals would bring them to par the one with the other, and keep them in that relation in 
the markets of the world. It is claimed, with good reason, that the laws hitherto enacted 
by Congress discriminating against silver and in favor of gold, were impolitic, unjust and 
un-American. It was urged in the debates of 1889-90 that the free coinage of silver would 
be of vast advantage to the financial interests of the country. This view and argument, 
however, were strenuously opposed by the money centres and the credit-holding classes of 
the United States, to whom the payment of all debts according to the highest standard of 
value, that is in gold only, was a fundamental principle. 

The debates for a while seemed likely to disrupt the existing political order. Suddenly 
the United States Senate, by a combination of a large number of free-silver Republicans 
with the great majority of Democrats, passed a bill for the absolute free coinage of silver, 
and for the day it seemed that the measure had succeeded. The administration, however, 
was strongly opposed to free coinage. The Senate bill was, therefore, adroitly arrested by 
the management of Speaker Reed and the Ways and Means Committee of the House. 
Another bill, in the form of an amendment providing for the purchase (but not for the 
coinage) of four million ounces of silver monthly by the treasury of the United States and 
the payment therefor in silver certificates having the fonn and functions of money, waa 
passed by the House and finally accepted by the Senate. An expansion of the paper money 
of the country was thus effected, while at the same time the control of the silver bullion was 
retained in the treasury under the management of those who were opposed to free coinage 
and hopeful ultimately of at least effecting a compromise by which a more valuable silver 
dollar may be substituted in the interest of the creditor classes in place of the standard 
silver dollar which has borne the full legal tender quality since the foundation of the gov- 
ernment. By the legislation just referred to, the ultimate decision of the silver question was 
thrown over to another Congress, to constitute a menace and terror to party discipline for 
both the Democratic and Republican parties. 

In addition to the admission of four new States, the Fifty-first Congress passed the 
necessary acts for the organization of Idaho and Wyoming. These were destined to make 
the forty-third and forty-fourth members of the Union. Idaho at the time of organization 
contained a population of 84,385. Wyoming had a population of 60,705. The acts for 
Statehood were passed for the two new commonwealths on the 3d and loth of July, respec- 
tively, in the year 1890. 

THE ELEVENTH CENSUS, AND DEATH OF SHERIDAN. 

In June of the same year was taken the eleventh decennial census of the United States. 
Its results, so far as the same have been compiled, indicate that the aggregate population 
of the country has increased to 62,622,250, exclusive of Indians not taxed and whites in 
Alaska and Indian Territor>'. These additions will doubtless increase the grand total to 
about sixty-three million souls. The centre of population had continued its progress west- 
ward, having removed during the ninth decade from the vicinity of Cincinnati to a point 
near the hamlet of Westport, in Decatur county, Indiana. 

The period which is here before us was marked by the death of three other great leaders 



EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 513 

of the Civil War. On the 5th of August, 1888, Lieutenant-General Sheridan, at that time 
commander-in-chief of the American anny, died at his home in Nonquitt, Massachusetts. 
Few other generals of the Union anny had won greater admiration and higher honors. He 
was in many senses a model soldier, and his death at the comparatively early age of fifty- 
seven was the occasion of great grief throughout the country. Still more conspicuous was 
the fall of General William T. Sherman. Among the Union commanders in the great Civil 
War he stood easily next to Grant in greatness and reputation. In vast and varied abilities, 
particularly in military accomplishments, he was perhaps superior to all. It may well be 
thought that he was more fortunate than any other — and wiser. After the war he steadily 
refused to be other than a great soldier. No enticement, no blandishment, no form of 
applause or persuasion, could induce him to exchange the laurels which he had won in the 
immortal contest for the Union for any other fonn of chaplet or perishable wreath. Sherman 
might have been President of the United States. It were not far from the truth to believe 
that he was the only man in America who ever willingly put aside that glittering prize. 
To have fallen into the hands of politicians, place-hunters, jobbers and connorants would 
have been intolerable to that brusque, sturdy and truthful nature. With a clearer vision 
even than the vision of Grant, he perceived that to be the unsullied great soldier of the 
Union was to be better than any thing made by men in caucus and convention. Bom 
in 1820, he reached the mature age of seventy-one, and died at his home in New York 
City on the 14th day of February, 1891. The event produced a profound impression. The 
General of the Union army who had fought so many great battles and said so many great 
things was at last silent in death. Of his sterling patriotism there had never been a doubt. 
Of his prescience in war, of his learning, of his abilities as an author, there could be as little 
skepticism. As to his wonderful faculties and achievements, all men were agreed. His 
funeral became the man. He had provided for that also in advance. He had directed that 
nothing other than a soldier's burial should be reserved for him. His remains were taken 
under escort from New York to St. Louis, where they were deposited in the family bury- 
ing grounds, in Mount Calvary Cemetery. 

After the death of General Sherman, only two commanders of the first class remained 
on the stage of action from the great Civil War — both Confederates. These were General 
Toseph E. Johnston and James Longstreet. The former of these two was destined to follow 
his rival and conqueror at an early day to the land of rest. General Johnston had been 
an honorary pall-bearer at the funeral of Sherman, and contracted a heavy cold on that 
occasion which resulted in his death on the 20th of February, 1891, at his home in Wash- 
ington City. Strange fatality of human affairs that after twenty -five years he who surren- 
dered his sword to Sherman at Raleigh should have come home from the funeral of the 
victor to die! General Johnston was in his eighty-third year at the time of his decease. 
Among the Confederate commanders none were his superiors, with the single exception of 
Lee. After the close of the war his conduct had been of a kind to win the confidence of 
Union men, and at the time of his death he was held in almost universal honor. 

THE NEW ORLEANS RIOT. 

It was at this time, namely, in February of 1891, that a serious event reaching upward 
and outward, first into national and then into international proportions, occurred in the city 
of New Orleans. There existed in that metropolis a branch of the secret social organization 
among the Italians known by the European name of the Mafia Society. The principles of 
the brotherhood involved mutual protection, and even the law of revenge against enemies. 
Doubtless much of the spirit which had belonged to the Italian order of the Mafia had been 
33 



514 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

transferred to America. At any rate, some of the features of the order were un-American 
in character, and some of the methods dangerous to the public and private peace. Several 
breaks occurred between members of the society (not the society itself) and the police 
authorities of the city; and the latter, by arrest and prosecution, incurred the dislike and 
hatred of the former. The difficulty grew in animosity until at length Captain David C. 
Hennessey, chief of the police of New Orleans, was assassinated by some secret mtirderer, 
or murderers, who for the time escaped detection. It was believed, however, that the Mafia 
Society was at the bottom of the assassination, and several of the members of the brother- 
hood were arrested under the charge of murder. 

A trial followed, and the circumstances tended to establish — but did not establish — the 
guilt of the prisoners. The proof was not positive — did not preclude a reasonable doubt 
of the guilt of those on trial, and the first three of the Italian prisoners were acquitted. 
The sequel was unfortunate in the last degree. A great excitement followed the decision 
of the Court and jury, and charges were made and published that the jury had been bribed 
or terrorized with threats into making a false verdict. These charges were never substan- 
tiated, and were doubtless without authenticity. But on the day following the acquittal 
of the Italians a public meeting, having its origin in mobocracy, was called, and a great 
crowd, irresponsible and angry, gathered around the statue of Henry Clay, in one of the 
public squares of New Orleans. 

Speeches were made. The authorities of the city, instead of attempting to check the 
movement, stood off and let it take its own course. A mob was at once organized and 
directed against the jail, where the Italian prisoners were confined. The jail was entered 
by force. The prisoners were driven from their cells, and nine of them were shot to death 
in the jail yard. Two others were dragged forth and hanged. Nor can it be doubted that 
the innocent as well as the guilty (if indeed any were guilty — as certainly none were guilty 
according to law) suffered in the slaughter. 

The event was followed by the greatest public excitement. Clearly murder and out- 
rage had been done by the mob. It was soon proved that at least two of the murdered 
Italians had been subjects of the Italian Kingdom; the rest were either naturalized Ameri- 
cans or foreigners bearing papers of intention. The affair at once became of national, and 
then of international, importance. The President of the United States called upon Gover- 
nor Nicolls, of Louisiana, to give an account of the thing done in New Orleans, and its 
justification. The governor replied with a communication in which it were hard to say 
whether insolence or inconsequential apology for the actions of the mob was uppermost. 
With this the excitement increased. The Italian Minister, Baron Fava, at Washington, 
entered his solemn protest against the killing of his countrymen, and the American Secre- 
tary of State entered into communication with King Humbert on the subject. 

Italy was thoroughly aroused. The Italian societies in various American cities passed 
angry resolutions against the destruction of their fellow-countrymen by the mob, and the 
newspapers of the country teemed with discussions of the subject. There was unfortunately 
a disposition on the part of America to play the bully. At times, threats of war were 
freely made, and it appeared not impossible that the two countries would become unhappily 
involved in a conflict. The more thoughtful, however, looked with confidence to the 
settlement of the question by peaceable means. The Italian government presently recalled 
Baron Fava from Washington, and during the remainder of the year, commtmications 
between the two governments were made only through the Italian Charge d' Affaires at 
Washington. Gradually, however, the excitement subsided. The American government 



EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. " 515 

was fortunate in having as its representative at the Court of Italy the Honorable Albert G. 
Porter, a man of calm temperament and deeply imbued with the sense of justice and right. 
By the beginning of 1892 it had become certain that the unpleasant episode would pass 
without further menace of war, and that the question involved in the difficulty would be 
justly settled in course of time by the equitable rules of diplomacy. 

THE CHILIAN COMPLICATION. 

The year 1891 was noted for a serious difficulty between the United States and the 
Republic of Chili. The complication had its origin in the domestic affairs of that 
republic, particularly in a revolution which, in the spring of the year named, began to 
make headway against the existing government. At the head of that government was 
President Balmaceda, against whom the popular party in the Chilian Congress was 
violentlv arrayed. The President was accused of seeking to influence the choice of his 
own successor in the approaching election, but more especially of retaining in office a 
ministry out of harmony with the Congressional majority. The latter point was the more 
serious, and led at length to the assumption of dictatorial powers by tlie President. This 
course seemed necessary in order to maintain himself in power and to uphold the existing 
ministry. The popular party receded from Congress only to take tip arms. This party 
was known in the civil conflict that ensued as the Congressional ists, while the upholders of 
the existing order were called Balmacedists. The latter had possession of the government; 
but the former, outside of the great cities of Valparaiso and Santiago, were the most 
powerful. 

The insurrection against Balmaceda gathered head. A Congressional Junta was 
formed, and a provisional government set up at the town of Iquique. Thus far the move- 
ment had in no wise disturbed the relations of Chili with the United States. It is in the 
nature of such revolutions that the insurgent party must acquire resources, gather arms, 
and create all the other means of its existence, progress and success. The Chilians of the 
Congressional faction found themselves in great need of arms, and would fain look to 
some foreign nation for a suppl}'. In the emergency they managed to get possession of a 
steamship called the Itata, belonging to the South American Steamship Company, and 
sent her to the western coast of the United States to purchase arms. The steamer came 
to the harbor of San Diego, California, and by the agency of an intermediate vessel 
managed to secure a large purchase of arms, and to get the same transferred to her own 
deck. At this juncture, however, the government, gaining information of the thing done, 
ordered the detention of the Itata until her bitsiness and destination could be known. A 
district attorney of the United States was sent on board the ship, which was ordered not 
to leave the bay. In defiance of this order, however, the officers of the Itata steamed out 
bv night and got to sea. They put the officer of the United States in a boat, sent him 
ashore, and disappeared over the Pacific horizon. 

The announcement of the escape of the Itata led to vigorous action on the part of 
the government. The United States war-ship Charleston was ordered out in pursuit from 
the bay of San Francisco. The Itata, however, had three days the start, and it could 
hardly be expected that the Charleston would be able to overhaul the fugitive. The latter 
made her way to one of the harbors of Chili, whither she was pursued by the Charleston. 
But the matter had now come to protest made by the United States to the provisional 
government of the Revolutionists, and the latter consented to the surrender of the Itata to 
the authorities of our country. This was done, and the incident seemed for the time to 
have ended without serious consequences. 



5^6 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



After the affair of the //a/a public opinion in Chili, particularly in the cities of Santiago 
and Valparaiso, turned strongly against the United States. This is said of the sentiments 
of the Congressional party. That party saw itself thwarted in its design and put at fault 
by its failure to secure the wished-for supply of arms, that failure having arisen through 
the agency of our government. However correct the course of the United States may have 
been, the Revolutionists must needs be angered at their disappointment, and it was natural 
for them to look henceforth with distrust and dislike on the authorities of our country. 
This dislike centred about the legation of the United States in Santiago. Hon. Patrick 
Egan, the American Minister, became unpopular with the Congressionalists because of his 
supposed favor to the Balmacedan government. That government still stood. It was 
recognized by the President of the United States as the government both dejure and de facto 
of Chili. Egan must therefore hold relations with Balmaceda and his Minister of Foreign 

Affairs. He must con- 
tinue to stand in with 
3 the existing order until 
some other order should 
be established in its 
stead. 
A SERIOUS SITUATION. 

It appears that our 
Minister and our 
government misappre- 
hended the importance 
and strength of the 
Revolutionary move- 
ment. The Congres- 
sionalists steadily 
gained ground. Per- 
haps the revolution 
which was progressing 
could not be seen in 
full magnitude from 

the position occupied by our Minister at the Chilian capital. At all events, the Congressional 
army came on in full force, and soon pressed the government back to the limits of the capital 
and the immediate vicinity of that city. Affairs drew to a crisis. A bloody battle was 
fought at a place called Placilla, near Santiago. The Balmacedists gave way before the 
storm. The battle of Placilla and a subsequent engagement still nearer to the capital went 
against them. The insurgents burst victoriously into Santiago, and the revolution accom- 
plished itself by the overthrow of the existing government. Everything went to wreck. 
Both Santiago and Valparaiso were taken by the Revolutionary party. The Balmacedists 
were fugitives in all directions. The Dictator himself fled into hiding, and presently made 
an end by committing suicide. 

In such condition of affairs it was natural that the defeated partisans of the late gov- 
ernment should take refuge in the legations of foreign nations at the capital. A Ministerial 
legation is, under international law, an asylum for refugees. At this time the official resi- 
dences of the foreign nations at Santiago, with the exception of that of Great Britain, were 
all crowded more or less with fugitives flying thither for safety from the wrath of the suc- 




CITY AND HARBOR OF VALPARAISO. 



EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 517 

cessful Revolutionists. The attitude of Great Britain from the first had been favorable to 
the Congressional party, and it was evident that that power would now stand in high favor 
with the victors. 

It chanced that the Minister of the United States was by birth an Irishman. He was 
an Irish agitator and British refugee lately naturalized in America. Probably the antago- 
nistic attitude of Great Britain and the United States at the Chilian capital was attributable 
in part to the nativity and political principles of Egan. At all events the American Minis- 
terial residence gave asylum to numbers of the defeated Balmacedists, and the triumphant 
Revolutionists grew more and more hostile to our government and Minister because they 
could not get at those who were under his protection. This hostility led to the establish- 
ment of a police guard and a force of detectives around the American legation. It seemed 
at times that the place might be actually attacked and taken by the angry victors in the 
recent revolution. At length, however, under the protests of our government, the guards 
were withdrawn and the legation was freed from surveillance. Relations began to grow 
amicable once more, when the difficulties suddenly took another and more serious form. 
MURDEROUS ASSAULT ON THE CREW OF THE BALTIMORE. 

It happened at this time that the war vessels of several nations visited the harbor of 
Valparaiso, drawn thither by interest and for the sake of information or the business of the 
respective navies. Among the ships that came was the United States war-steamer Balti- 
more. On the i6th of October, 1891, a hundred and seventeen petty officers and men, 
headed by Captain Schley, went on shore by permission, and in the usual way went into 
the city of Valparaiso. Most of them visited a quarter of the city not reputable in character. 
It soon became apparent that the ill-informed enmity and malice of the lower classes were 
strongly excited at the appearance of the men and uniform of the United States on the 
streets. With the approach of night, and with apparent pre-arrangement, a Chilian mob 
rose upon the sailors and began an attack. The sailors retreated and attempted to regain 
their ship; but the mob closed around them, throwing stones, and presently at closer quar- 
ters using knives and clubs. Eighteen of the sailors were brutally stabbed and beaten, and 
some died from their injuries. The remainder leaving the wounded behind them escaped 
to the ship. 

Intelligence of this event was at once communicated to the government of the United 
States. The country was greatly excited over the outrage, and preparations were begun 
for war. The navy department was ordered to prepare several vessels for the Chilian coast 
The great war-ship Oregon and two others were equipped, manned and directed to the 
Pacific shores of South America. The President immediately directed the American 
Minister at Santiago to demand explanation, apology, and reparation for the insult and 
crime committed against the government of the United States. The Chilian authorities 
began to temporize with the situation. A tedious investigation of the riot was undertaken 
vn the courts of Santiago, resulting in an inconsequential verdict. 

Meanwhile, Senor M. A. Matta, Chilian Minister of Foreign Affairs, added fuel to the 
flame by transmitting an offensive communication to Senor Pedro Montt, representative of 
the Chilian government at Washington, in which he reflected on the President of the 
United States, accused our government of falsehood, attacked Egan, and ended by instruct- 
ing Montt to let the contents of the note be known ! This was soon followed by another 
communication from Senor Matta, demanding the recall of Patrick Egan from the Chilian 
capital, as persona non grata to the government. But he failed to specify the particular 
qualities or acts in the American Minister which made him unacceptable. 




BBCORATION DAY — THK TRIBUTE THAT PEACE PAYS TO THE MEMORY OF THE BLUE AND THE GRAY. 

(51S) 






EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 



519 



The publication of these two notes brought matters to a crisis. The President, through 
the proper authorities, demanded that the offensive note of Matta be withdrawn; that the 
demand for the recall of Egan be reconsidered, and that reparation for the insults and 
wrongs done to the crew of the Baltimore be repaired with ample apology and salute to the 
American flag by the Chilian government. Answers to these demands were again delayed, 
and on the 25th of January, 1892, the President sent an elaborate message to Congress, 
laying before that body an account of the difficulties, and recommending such action as 
might be deemed necessary to uphold the honor of the United States. For a single day it 
looked like war. 

Scarcely, however, had the President's message been delivered to Congress when the 
Chilian government, receding from its high-toned manner of offense and arrogance, sent, 
through its Minister of Foreign Affairs, a paper of full apology for the wrongs done, and 
offering to submit the affair of the Ba/tmiore 
to arbitration of some friendly power. The 
offensive note of Senor Matta was uncon- 
ditionally withdrawn. The demand for tlie 
removal of Egan was recalled, and indeed 
all reasonable points in the contention of the 
President freely and fully conceded. The 
crisis broke with the knowledge that the 
apology of Chili had been received, and like 
the recent difficulty with Italy over the New 
Orleans massacre, the imbroglio passed with- 
out further alarm or portent of war. 

By the enactment of the McKinley Bill, 
certain kinds of industr}' in the United States 
were made prosperous to a degree ; other 
industries were disparaged and retarded. 
The act was the ultimate expression of the 
high-protective policy. Never before in a 
time of peace had a civilized nation adopted 
such a schedule of discriminating duties on 
imports. The opponents of the measure denoimced it as not only unwarrantable, but also 
imconstitutional. An action was made against tlie measure, and the cause was carried to 
the Supreme Court of the United States. By that august tribunal the act was tested ; and 
on the 29th of February, 1892, was declared to be constitutional. Meanwhile, measures 
had been taken to carry out, not only the protective, but also the reciprocal features of the 
McKinley law. Between the loth and 30th of March, commercial treaties were framed 
between the United States on the one side, and France, Spain and several of the Central 
and South American States on the other, covering the principle of reciprocity in the future 
trade of our country with the nations referred to. 




WILLIAM M KINLEY. 



THE CAMPAIGN OF 1892. 

These measures were the last important civil acts of the administration of Harrison. 
The spring of 1892 brought around once more the crisis of a Presidential election. As the 
time approached, the conditions that were to determine the contest became interesting and 
involved. James G. Blaine, Secretary of State, had without doubt been anxious for many 



520 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



years to reach the Presidential chair. His abilities to be President were acknowledged even 
by his political opponexits — this, too, while many of his political friends doubted his temper. 
The sequel showed that disease had already attacked this remarkable personage, and 
marked the end of his career. During his incumbency as Secretary of State, he had been 
much harried by politicians, great and small, to become the candidate for the Presidency in 
1892. It cannot be doubted that his influence in procuring the incongruous clause in favor 
of reciprocity in the McKinley Bill had furnished to the Republican party its only chance 
of success in the impending election. As the time for the nominating conventions drew 
near, Blaine — now a sick man — was more and more annoyed by both enemies and friends. 
His position in the cabinet when the President himself was a candidate for re-election placed 
him at a great disadvantage. The Secretary had announced that he would not be a 

candidate. His friends, however, continued 
to say that they had a right to nominate him 
if they desired to do so. 

In the meantime, the army of office- 
holders, numerous and strong, had rallied for 
the renomination of Harrison. Suddenly on 
the 3d of June, within four days of the meet- 
ing of the Republican National Convention at 
Minneapolis, Blaine resigned from the cabi- 
net. His note to the President, and that of 
the latter to him, were severely formal. The 
National Convention met. Harrison was put 
in nomination, and so was Blaine ; but the 
strength of the latter had now turned to weak- 
ness. Prejudice had arisen against him. 
The office-holding following of the adminis- 
tration in convention was able to cry out many 
things reflecting on the conduct and political 
character of the late Secretan,-. Benjamin 
Harrison was easily renominated ; the small 
vote of Blaine melted away, and his star sank 
behind the horizon. For Vice-President, 
Whitelaw Reid, late Minister to France, was 
nominated in place of Levi P. Morton, whose 
name was not offered to the convention. 

The Republican platform declared for the 
policy of protection, with the principle of reciprocity added ; for bimetalism, with the 
provision that the parity of values of gold and silver should be maintained. There should 
be an unrestricted ballot. The Monroe doctrine should be advanced and defended. The 
immigration of criminals and paupers and laborers under contract should be forbidden. 
The policy of Home Rule in Ireland deserved the sympathy of Americans ; and the 
persecution of the Russian Jews was declared a barbarity. The proposed sliip canal of 
Nicaragua should be controlled by the United States. Reasonable governmental aid sliould 
be given to the oncoming World's Columbian Exposition. 

On the 2ist of June, the Democratic National Convention met in Chicago. Many 
desultory and some threatening movements had been made in the Democratic party to prevent 




WHITEI.AW REID, 

Ex-Miuister of the U. S. to Paris. 



EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 



521 



the nomination of Grover Cleveland, who was now for the third time recommended by a 
tremendous following for the Presidency. But this opposition could not organize itself — 
though backed by the powerful influence of Senator David B. Hill of New York — and was 
impotent to prevent the success of the favor- 
ite. That remarkable personage was again 
nominated for the Presidency, and with him 
Adlai E. Stevenson, of Illinois, for the Vice- 
Presidency. 

The Democratic platform delared alle- 
giance to the Jeffersonian principles of gov- 
ernment. Centralization of political power 
was deprecated. Federal control of elections 
was denounced, as was also that " sham " 
reciprocity which had been joined with the 
pernicious doctrine of protection. The laws 
should be enforced. Trusts should be con- 
trolled. Silver should be coined freely with 
gold, but with parity of value. Civil ser- 
vice should be promoted. The Chinese, 
paupers, and contract laborers should be pre- 
vented from immigration to the United 
States. The tax on state banks should be 

repealed 




DAVID B. HILI,. 



Soldiers should be pensioned, popular 

education favored, railroad employes protected by 

law, the " sweating system " abolished, employment 

^ of children in factories prohibited, and sumptuary 

M "'-"V laws opposed. 

f V m The National Convention of the Prohibitionists 

tdi it^ML .liiB was held in Cincinnati, beginning on the 30th of 

3f J^m ^^II^E June. General John Bidwell, of California, was 

nominated for President, and J. B. Cranfall of 
Texas, for Vice-President. The platform declared 
for laws for the suppression of the liquor traffic ; 
demanded equal suffirage for women ; and Govern- 
mental control of railroads and telegraphs ; re- 
striction of immigration ; suppression of specula- 
tion in margins ; free coinage of silver at existing 
ratio, and an increase in the volume of money ; 
tariff for revenue, and proper protection against the 
influence of foreign nations. 

The National Convention of the People's party 
assembled at Omaha on the 4th of July. The 
numbers in attendance and the enthusiasm showed 
conclusively a great increase in the following of 
The platform declared in favor 
of the union of the labor forces of the United States in a common cause against corporate 
power, demanded governmental control of railroads, telegraphs and public corporations : 




GENERAI, JOHN BIDWELL. 

this party, which now began to be designated as Populists. 



522 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



I 



demanded also the free coinage of silver at the existing ratio, and an increase in the 
circulating medium ; also an income tax ; also a system of government savings banks ; 
also opposition to ownership of lands by aliens and corporations. On this platform 
General James B. Weaver, of Iowa, for President and Judge James B. Field, of Virginia, 
for Vice-President were nominated. With this personnel and under these respective 
political banners the parties to the contest went to the people in the campaign of 1892. 



THE STRIKES OF 1892. 

About the time of the national conventions in this year began the distressing series of 

events which, with increasing volume, widened into all departments of American industrv, 

blasting the fruits of labor and indicating in the industrial society of the United States the 

existence of profoinid and dangerous vices. On the 30th of June, the managers of the great 

iron works at Homestead, a short distance from 
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, apprehending a strike of 
their operatives on acccount of a reduction of wages, 
declared a lockout, and closed the establishment. 
Tliis was said to be done under the necessit}- of 
making repairs and the like ; but the dullest could 
not fail to understand the true intent of the corpo- 
ration. 

The operatives, thus wronged, assumed a threat- 
ening attitude ; and the managers sent secretly to 
the Pinkerton detective agency at Chicago for a 
force to protect the works. A large body of armed 
men was sent with the purpose of putting the same 
.secretly into the works to defend the establishment. 
As the boat bearing the Pinkerton force came near 
to Homestead, it was fired on by the strikers, and a 
battle ensued, in which ten strikers and four detec- 
tives were killed. A very large number of the 
latter were wounded on the boat, and the whole 
were driven away. The strikers gained possession 
of the works ; the civil authorities were powerless ; 
and an appeal was made to the Governor of the State. 
The Pennsylvania National Guard to the number of 8500, was called out, under 
proclamation of the Governor. On the 12th of July, a military occupation was established 
at Homestead, and was maintained for several weeks. The restoration of order was extremely 
difficult. The leaders of the strike were arrested. Superintendent Frick of the iron works 
was attacked by an anarchist who attempted to assa.ssinate him in his office. At length, 
under the necessity which the social order has to maintain itself, the original wrong done 
by Andrew Carnegie, proprietor of the works, and his subordinates, was enforced by law 
and by the power of the militar)'. In the meantime, the miners of the Creur d'.^lene mining 
region in far-of? Idaho rose against a body of non-union workingmen, who had been 
introduced into the mines, killed many, and drove away the remainder. Railroad bridges 
and other property were destroyed, and a reign of terror established. It was not until the 
17th of July that military rule prevailed over the rioters, whose leaders were arrested and 
imprisoned. 




|i 



GENERAL JAMES B. WEAVER. 



EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 



523 



In a short time, a dreadful scene of violence was enacted at Buffalo. A strike occurred 
of the switchmen of the Erie and Lehigh Valley Railway at that city. The attempt was 
made to put the strikers down ; whereupon they attacked the loaded freight trains standing 
on the side-tracks, and burned the cars by hundreds. The whole National Guard of New 
York was, on the i8th of August, summoned to the scene. The strikers were overawed, or 




IMPORTATION OF CONTRACT LABOR INTO THE UNITED STATES. 

dispersed. On the 24th of the month, a settlement was reached, and the switchmen who 
had begun the strike returned, as far as possible, to their duties. 

About this time, an alarm came from the approach of cholera. That dreadful disease 
had broken out at Hamburg, and had desolated the cit}-. The malady spread to Antwerp, 
Bremen and Havre, and found even in London and Liverpool a few points of infection. On 
the 31st of August, the steamer Moravia arrived at New York from Hamburg, bearing the 



524 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

disease. The vessel was quarantined in the lower bay. Proclamation was made by the 
President requiring all ships from infected ports to be detained outside the danger line for 
twenty days. A few other steamers beside the .l/oraz'/a arrived with cholera on board, and 
the authorities of New York were obliged to contend with the disease imtil the coming of 
cold weather. 

SECOND ELECTION OF CLEVELAND. 

In due time, the Presidential election was held. Though the followers of Harrison had 
been able to force his re-nomination, they were not able to secure his re-election. Everything 
went overwhelmingly against the Republican party, and mostly in favor of the Democrats. 
Of the electoral votes, Cleveland received 277, Harrison 145, and Weaver 22. Of the 
representatives in Congress elected, 217 were Democrats, 128 Republicans, and 8 Populists. 
The popular vote showed for Cleveland and Stevenson, 5,554,685 ; for Harrison and Reid, 
5,172,343; for Weaver and Field, 1,040,600 ; for Bidwell and Cranfall, 273,314. Thus, by 
a remarkable change from tlie verdict of 1888, the defeated candidate of that year was 
restored to the Presidency by a popular plurality of nearly four hundred thousand votes. 

THE WORLD'S COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION. 

The date now arrived for the celebration in the United States of the Fourth Centennial 
of the discovery of America by Columbus. The other nations conceded to our country and 
people the honor of holding a World's Columbian Exposition as a jubilee and commemo- 
ration of the giving of these continents to mankind by the Man of Genoa, in the years 
1492-93. 

The suggestion of holding a world's fair in America in 1892, in celebration of the 
quadricentennial of the New World, was first made in the year 1882. The idea was 
received with such favor that a general agitation of the project by the public press almost 
immediately followed. But nothing definite was done until the Paris Exposition of 1889 
had further emphasized the importance of the celebration. 

When the demand for such a fitting observance of the great event became urgent, cities 
began to contend for the honor, and Congress signified a willingness to hear the claims and 
proposals of contestants. Washington Cit}-, New York, Chicago and St. Louis entered the 
lists to secure the location, each with an agreement to provide suitable grounds and raise by 
subscription the sum of $5,000,000 with wliicb to erect buildings for the purpose. Chicago 
submitted her claims with an agreement to raise $10,000,000 for the Exposition. Each city 
sent delegations of prominent citizens to press their respective claims before Congress. A 
decisive vote, after eight ballots, was reached by that body on February 24tli, 1890, the 
result being as follows: For Chicago 157; for New York 107; for St. Louis 25; for 
Washington City 18. It was thus determined by a very decisive majority that the fair 
should be held in Chicago, and the necessary' enactments to make it a national enterprise 
soon followed. Pending the action of Congress, several of the leading citizens of that city 
took the preliminary steps for forming an organization under the laws of Illinois, taking as 
a title "The World's Columbian Exposition of 1892." 

On April 4th the Chicago corporation held its first meeting to discuss ways and means, 
and on the 12th following, a temporary organization was effected by the election of Edwin 
Walker, chairman. On the 25th of April, Congress passed, and the President approved, an 
act entitled, " An act to provide for celebrating the four hundredth anniversary of the 
discovery of America by Christopher Columbus, by holding an international exhibition of 
arts, industries, manufactures, and the products of the soil, mine and sea, in the City of 



I 



«li 




(525) 



526 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



Chicago." The act also created the World's Columbian Commission, thns establishing the 
legal title of the enterprise. At the same time it was provided by a supplemental act that 
a dedication of the Exposition buildings with appropriate ceremonies should take place 
October 12, 13 and 14, 1892. Five days later the Chicago Columbian Corporation effected 
a permanent organization, and the business of promoting the great Exposition was begun. 

ORGANIZATION FOR THE COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION. 

The promoters of this greatest of national expositions were prompted by higher and 
more liberal aims than had characterized the management of any previous world's fair. 
One particular feature was the recognition of women in full fellowship with men in the 

conduct of the Exposition. A woman's department 
was created by act of Congress, and a board of lady 
managers was appointed by the President, in pur- 
suance of the creating act. There was also appointed 
a board of control and management of the govern- 
ment exhibit, as well as superintendents of the 
fifteen departments into which the Exposition was 
divided. The President also appointed commission- 
ers of the fair for the several States ; and on the 
24th of December, 1890, he issued a proclamation 
officially inviting all the nations of the earth to 
participate in the Exposition. 

The inaugural ceremonies provided for were 
in two parts — those to be observed in the dedication 
of the buildings of the- great Exposition to be 
given in October, 1892 ; and those attendant upon 
the formal opening to visitors, in May, 1893. 
It had been the original intention (and invitations 
to distinguished people throughout America were 
issued to that effect) to dedicate 
the buildings with imposing 
ceremonies on the nth, 12th 
and 13th of October. But con- 
siderable delay attended the 
construction of the buildings, 
and it was deemed advisaljle to 
postpone the dedication until 

COLrMIilAN MONUMENT IN MADRID. ^|jg 2^..^ ^f ^^.g UlOntll, wllich 

was accordingly done ; and invitations announcing this fact were issued in August, 1892. 




I 



CELEBRATING THE DISCOVERY IN OTHER COUNTRIES. 

In the meantime, other leading nations of the world had made preparations for com- 
memorating the discovery of America, by observances of the most magnificent character. 
In Spain a royal decree was issued January loth, 1891, providing for the appointment of a 
committee to organize and prepare for an appropriate celebration of the event. The decree 
provided that Portugal and the United States be invited to be represented, and through this 



EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 



527 



committee arrangements were perfected on a gigantic scale for the national observance. A 
congress, commemorating the departnre of Columbus, was held at Huelva, at which a 
model of the Santa Maria was exhibited, and the vessel, after being saluted by the govern- 
ment, was conveyed to her quarters, preparatory to sailing to America in January of the 
following year. 

In Madrid there was also an exhibition of the arts and industries of the Columbian 
period. The exposition of these articles was opened on the 12th of September, 1892, 
and continued imtil December 31st, following. The exhibits were classified in historical 
order, beginning with plans, models, reproductions from American antiquities, everything 
showing evidence of having been used in human art in the New World. This exhibit of 
the habitations of man in all periods and all 
countries was one of the most interesting ever 
made at any exposition, excelling even the dis- 
play at the Paris Exposition of 1889. Among 
other things there were plans and models of 
preliistoric American monuments, and of native 
arms, including arrows made of bone and horn, 
also of utensils of the copper and bronze ages ; 
so that in some respects the exposition was a 
museum of the workmanships of the earliest 
races of mankind. 

In August, there was opened an exhibi- 
tion at Genoa, the birthplace of Columbus, 
which celebrated the quadricentennial under 
the auspices of the King and Queen of 
Italy. The exposition was confined to Italian 
and American products, but several original 
features were added to give it an interna- 
tional interest. A new opera, entitled 
Cohimbus^ by Baron Franchetti, was 
presented before an audience of sev- % 
eral thousand persons, among whom 
were the King and Queen, and all 
the dignitaries of Italy. A mitseura 
of Columbian antiquities was another 
feature of the exposition, which ex- 
cited the curiosity of the masses, as 
well as the liveliest interest of anti- 
quarians. On the evening of the 
9th of September, a grand ball was 

given in the main building, which was pronounced the most magnificent social function 
ever held in any country. The King and Queen, together with their court, were among 
the participants. 

On July 20th, 1892, an exposition was opened in Colombia, South America, continuing 
until October 31st. A larger part of the collection of curios placed on exhibition in 
Colombia were sent to Chicago at the close of the exposition, and made a part of the South 
American exhibits. 




MONUMENT TO COLUMBUS IN GENOA. 



528 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

SITE, PLAN, SIZE AND COST OF EXPOSITION BUILDINGS. 

The preliminary steps of the organization having been completed and the necessary 
committees appointed, the World's Fair Corporation selected as a site best adapted for the 
Exposition and buildings, a tract of 663 acres, occupied by Jackson Park and ]\Iidway 
Plaisance, two of the principal Chicago parks. These have a lake frontage of a mile and a 
half. A selection of the site was followed with the opening of subscriptions, by which the 
sum of $4,500,000 was secured upon the personal pledges of 29,374 persons, to which 
amount $5,000,000 was added by an issue of Chicago Cit\- bonds. This enormous sum, 
however, was found to be inadequate for a proper preparation of the grounds and construc- 
tion of the buildings according to the conceptions of the projectors, and an appeal to 
Congress was made for additional aid. The application was bitterly opposed by a large 
number of influential members, and upon a vote the scheme was defeated. But a compro- 
mise was reached by which the government agreed to issue souvenir coins of the value of 
fifty cents each, to the amount of $2,500,000 ; and these were turned over at their face value 
to the World's Fair directors, who were privileged to dispose of them at whatever advantage 
they could obtain. Shrewd speculators, recognizing the demand that would be made for 
the souvenir coins, submitted various bids for the entire issue, one of which was finally 
accepted, by which the Association hoped to realize $5,000,000, or double the face value of 
the coins. This large increase to the original fund encouraged the directory to carry out 
all the designs for buildings and improvements which they had conceived. 

A considerable part of Jackson Park was unimproved and lay in large depressions 
which required a great amount of filling. The waterways had to be dredged so as to admit 
sailing craft through the devious channels. Half a million dollars were spent in accom- 
plishing this work, while as much more was expended on landscape gardening, fountains, 
observ'atories, statuary, etc. This outlay of a million dollars was but the beginning of the 
cost of the total improvements that were made necessary under the following estimates : 

Grading, filling, etc., $450,000 ; landscape gardening, $323,090 ; viaducts and bridges, 
^125,000; piers, $70,000; railway improvements, $225,000; railways, $500,000; steam 
plant, $800,000; electricity, $1,500,000; statuary and buildings, $100,000; vases, lamps 
and posts, $50,000; seating, $8000; water supply, sewerage, etc., $600,000; improvement 
of lake front, $200,000 ; world's congress auxiliary, $200,000 ; construction department 
expenses, $520,000 ; organization and administration, $3,308,563 ; operating expenses, 
$1,550,000. Total, $10,530,453. To this estimate there remained to be added the cost of 
the buildings proper, amounting to $8,000,000, and the expenditures by the government, 
and several States, and foreign nations, which were approximately $15,000,000 additional. 

The sizes of the buildings constructed for the Exposition were as follows : 

Administration, 262 x 262 ; Manufactures and Liberal Arts, 787 x 1687 ; Mines and 
Mining, 350 x 700 ; Electricity, 345 x 690 ; Transportation, 256 x 960 ; Transportation 
Annex, 425 X 900 ; Woman's, 196x388; Art Galleries, 320x500; Art Galler>- Annexes 
(2), 120 X 200 ; Fisheries, 165 x 365 ; Fisheries Annexes (2), 135 in diameter ; Horticulture, 
250 X 998 ; Horticulture Greenhouses (8), 24 x 100 ; Machinery, 592 x 846 ; ]\Iachinery 
Annex, 490 x 550 ; Machinery Power House, 461 .x 490 ; Machinery Pumping Works, 
77 X 84 ; Machinery Machine Shop, 106 x 250 ; Agriculture, 500 x 800 ; Agriculture Annex, 
300x550; Agriculture Assembly Hall, 125x450; Forestry, 20S x 528 ; Saw Mill, 125 x 300; 
Dairj', 100x200; Live Stock (2), 65x200; Live Stock Pavilion, 280x440; Live Stock 
Sheds, to cover 40 acres ; Casino, 120 x 250 ; Music Hall, 120 x 250 ; United States Govern- 
ment Building, 345 x 41 5 ; Imitation Battleship, 69 x 348 ; Illinois State Building, 160 x 450. 




15-9) 



530 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

The total space occupied by these buildings was a fraction more than 159 acres. But 
in addition to the above, ever}' State provided its own building, as did also the foreign 
nations. The appropriations made by the United States and Territories for buildings 
aggregated $1,500,000, while the following specific appropriations were made for exhibits : 

Arizona, $30,000 ; California, $300,000 ; Colorado, $100,000 ; Delaware, $10,000 ; 
Idaho, $20,000 ; Illinois, $800,000 ; Indiana, $75,000 ; Iowa, $130,000; Kentucky, $100,000; 
Maine, $40,000 ; Maryland, $60,000 ; Massachusetts, $150,000 ; Michigan, $100,000 ; Minne- 
sota, $50,000 ; Missouri, $150,000 ; Montana, $50,000 ; Nebraska, $50,000 ; New Hampshire, 
$35,000 ; New Jersey, $70,000 ; New Mexico, $25,000 ; New York, $300,000 ; North Caro- 
lina, $25,000 ; North Dakota, $25,000 ; Ohio, $125,000 ; Pennsylvania, $300,000; Rhode 
Island, $50,000; Vermont, $15,000; Virginia, $25,000; Washington, $100,000; West 
Virginia, $40,000 ; Wisconsin, $65,000 ; Wyoming, $30,000. Total of appropriations thus 
made, $3,435,000. 

Owing to constitutional restrictions, nine States were luiable to make appropriations, 
but they were properly represented, organizations being formed, and stock subscriptions 
made in the following sums : 

Alabama, $50,000 ; Arkansas, $40,000 ; Florida, $200,000 ; Georgia, $100,000 ; Kansas, 
$100,000 ; Louisiana, $50,000 ; Oregon, $50,000 ; South Dakota, $80,000 ; Texas, $300,000 ; 
Utah, $50,000. Total by stock subscriptions, $1,020,000. 

The following nations also voted appropriations for their respective exhibits : 

Argentine Republic, $100,000; Aii.stria, $102,300; Barbadoes, $6000; Belgium, 
$57,900; Bermuda, $3000 ; Bolivia, $30,700 ; Brazil, $600,000; British Guiana, $25,000; 
British Honduras, $7500; Canada, $150,000; Cape Colony, $50,000; Ceylon, $65,600; 
United States of Colombia, $150,000; Costa Rica, $150,060 ; Cuba, $25,000; Denmark, 
$67,000; Dutch Guiana, $10,000; Dutch West Indies, $5000; Ecuador, $125,000 ; France, 
$627,250; Germany, $690,200; Great Britain, $291,990; Greece, $60,000; Guatemala, 
$120,000; Hayti, $25,000; Honduras, $20,000; Jamaica, $25,000; Japan, $630,765; Lee- 
ward Islands, $6000 ; Mexico, $50,000 ; New South Wales, $150,000 ; New Zealand, 
$27,500 ; Nicaragua, $30,000 ; Norway, $56,280 ; Orange Free State, $7500 ; Paraguay, 
$100,000; Peru, $140,000; Salvador, $12,500; Sweden, $23,600; Tasmania, $10,000; 
Trinidad, $15,000; Uruguay, $24,000; Victoria, $100,000. Total of appropriations made 
by foreign countries, $4,952,585. 

In addition to the above, the following countries were represented by exhibits made 
chiefly through individual enterprise, the expense of which in the aggregate was relatively 
very large, but the exact amounts are not obtainable : 

Algeria, British Columbia, Bulgaria, Chili, China, Danish West Indies, Egypt, Erythria 
(Asia Minor), French Guiana, Hawaii, India, Italy, Corea, Liberia, Madagascar, Madeira, 
Alalta, Mashonaland, Mauritius, Netherlands, Newfoundland, Persia, Porto Rico, Province 
of Quebec, Queensland, Roumania, Russia, San Domingo, Servia, Siani, South Australia, 
Spain, Switzerland, Transvaal, Turkey, \'enezuela. West Australia. 

DEDICATORY CEREMONIES AT NEW YORK. 

With the coming of October 12th, 1892, nearly every town within the United States 
celebrated the quadricentennial of the American discovery with some form of jubilation. 
Special preparations on a gigantic scale were made by New York City for an obser\ance of 
the day. To prevent the threatened conflict between the celebration and the dedication of 
buildings at Chicago, Senator Hill, of New York, introduced a resolution to postpone the 



I 



EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 



531 





















JDubUji & Munich, 
each IZtu^res. 




J 


'k^yyoHc, W53. J3 acres 






£.onjion-, WSJ. 2J cccres. 





XontioTi^/SGZ. 23*2CLcres. 



Jfa^-t^ . /£tsa. £4y^acr-a. 



J^gj^is. /SGT. 37 acres. 



l»hilxteUlf3hia.,/876. 60acre^. 



T^ttr-t^, /378. /OO ccc7-e^. 



Tar is. 7889. /ffO tvcres. 



Chlc€t^o,7SS3. 6.33 i^cT-e^. 



DIAGRAM SHOWING COMPARAXrVE AREAS OCCUPIED BY THE SEVERAL INTERNATIONAI, EXPOSITIONS. 



532 PiiUPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

dedicatory ceremonies of the World's Columbian Exposition until October 21st, and this 
measure was adopted by both Houses of Congress. New York exerted herself to make her 
celebration memorable for its magnificence. The ceremonies began on Monday, October 
lOtli, with a parade of school children, in which there were 25,000 in line ; tlie procession 
passed in review before President Cleveland and the New York State officers. 

On the following day interest was intensified by a grand naval parade in tlie harbor of 
New York, participated in by the fleets of nine great nations, affording one of the most 
imposing spectacles of modern times. The city was thronged with visitors as never before ; 
the decorations cost $1,000,000, and were of regal splendor. The shore of the bay was 
lined with excited spectators, who stood for hours watching with unabated interest tlie lines 
of ships that steamed in solemn procession from Gravesend Bay to the foot of One Hundred 
and Twenty-fifth street. A perfect day bathed the city with sunshine, while a refreshing 
breeze invigorated the spectators. A grander sight had not been witnessed since the Spanish 
Armada sailed out of Lisbon in 158S with the \ain hope of subjugating the British Isles. 

The ships started on their course at 12 o'clock, the order of movement being in three 
columns, with a distance of 300 yards intervening. The foreign vessels occupied the 
centre, with those of the United States on either side. As the line entered the Narrows a 
salute of twent}--one guns was fired from both shores. Then came the patrolling flotilla 
manned by the marines of New York. The United States torpedo boat Ciis/iiiig, with D. 
Nicholson Kane, director of the naval parade, on board, came next. After this the majestic 
fleet moved slowly across the bay. 

The United States flagship Philadelphia, led the way of the visiting men-of-war. These 
were under the following officers: Commodore Henr>- Er.ben, U. S. N., connnanding; 
Captain Albert S. Barker, Fleet Captain ; Lieutenant-Commander Franklin Hanford, aid ; 
Lieutenant-Commander Henry P. Mansfield, aid ; Lieutenant Scudder Prime, aid. The 
vessels advanced in the following order : 

United States steamer Miaiifoiioiiiali, Captain IMontgomery Sicard. 

United State flagship Philadelphia, Captain Albert S. Barker. 

French flagship VArcthiisc, Rear-Admiral De le Brant. 

United vStates steamer Atlanta, Captain F. H. Higginson. 

United States steamer Dolphin, Commander W. S. Brownson. 

French gunboat Hiissard. 

Coast-Survey steamer Blake, Lieutenant C. S. \'ecland. 

United States steamer I'esuvius, Lieutenant Seatou Shroder. 

Italian cruiser Baiisan. 

United States ship St. Alary, Commander John McGowan. 

Revenue steamer Grant, Captain Thomas Smith. 

Spanish cruiser Infanta Isabel. 

Lighthouse steamer Armenia. 

Revenue steamer Dexter, Captain J. A. Slam. 

United States steamer Ciishinj^, Lieutenant McR. Winslow. 

Accompanying the government vessels was a special escort, comprising the Fire and 
Dock Department boats and fifteen yachts. 

The Second Division consisted of seventeen yachts, among the number being several 
th:,t are owned b)' prominent citizens of New York, such as the Rival, the Golden Fleece, 
the Sea ll'arren, the Nonrmahal, the Halcyon, the Conqueror, the Ituria, the Sapphire, the 
Orienta, the Clermont, and the Corsair. 




(533) 



534 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

The Third Division comprised twelve steamboats ; the Fourth, fifteen steamboats ; the 
Fifth, twenty-five steamboats and tugs ; the Sixth, twentj-two tugs ; the Seventh, twenty- 
eight propellers and steamboats ; the Eighth, tweiit}-five tugs ; the Ninth, eight merchant 
vessels ; the Tenth, fourteen merchant vessels. 

When the Philadclpliia reached a point between the two forts at the Narrows, she was 
moving majestically at the head of a stateh- procession. Fort Hamilton began the salute, 
firing one of her 15-inch case-mated pieces. The national salute was fired at intervals 
of twenty seconds by each fort. Presentl)- the men-of-war returned the salute, and for ten 
minutes the eSect was like a bombardment. 

On Libertv Island the four companies which compose the garrison had set up six guns, 
and, under Lieutenant Webster, began firing, when the PliiladclpJiia arrived off the statue 
of Liberty Enlightening the World. One of the sights of the parade was a series of gigantic 
floats, illustrating the progress in the art of shipbuilding since the time of Columbus. As 
the parade passed Battery Park a second salute of twenty-one guns was fired. The rumbling 
of the cannon had scarcely died away when the mighty host along the shores began to cheer. 
The shout was taken up by the assembled throng on the Battery, and the roar rolled along 
the shores of North River. The three columns of vessels moved on uninterruptedly until 
opposite Riverside Park, where the ships ca.st anchor. Then Mayor Grant, with the munic- 
ipal guests, passed along the line in his boat, and was greeted by a salute of twenty-one guns. 

Other observances occurred in different parts of the city scarcely inferior to that of the 
naval procession. At eight o'clock there was a parade of 25,000 Catholics, which was 
reviewed at the Orphan Asylum by Archbishop Corrigan. At the same time there was a 
■German choral festival, in the Seventh Armory building, where a cantata, composed for the 
■occasion by Dr. IMealannet, of Baltimore, was rendered by 4000 voices. A display of fire- 
works on the Brooklyn Bridge began in the evening and lasted until midnight. 

On the following morning the city was awakened by the booming of cannon. It was 
the day of great civic and military parade. The First Division was made up of soldiers 
from the United States Army in command of Colonel Loomis L. Langdon, U. S. A. ; the 
United States military band ; a battalion of cadets from West Point ; three batteries from 
Fort Hamilton ; three from Fort Wadsworth ; two from Fort Columbus ; three from Fort 
Adams ; two from Fort Schuyler ; the First Artillery from Fort Hamilton, and Battery B 
from Fort Adams. 

The Second Division was composed of the United States Naval Brigade in command 
of Lieutenant-Connnander Asa Walker. There were over twelve hundred cadets and 
marines in this division. 

The Third Division consisted of about eight thousand militiamen from New Jersey, 
Connecticut and Penns}lvania. 

The Fourth Division was made up of divisions of the Grand Anny of the Republic, 
and numbered 8000 veterans and about thirty-five hundred sons of veterans. 

The Fifth Division consisted of letter carriers to the number of 1500. In the Sixth 
Division were companies from the New York and visiting fire departments, about one 
thousand in number. 

There were 4500 men in the Seventh Division. It was composed of fifteen brigades 
of exempt volunteers and veteran firemen's associations ; the Second Regiment of the Fire 
Zouaves ; Seventy-third Regiment of Volunteers ; the \'olunteer Firemen's Association of 
New York City, 800 men and engines ; Veteran Firemen's Association of New London, 150 
men and engine ; Veteran Firemen's Association of Utica, N. Y. 



EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 535 

The Eighth Division was composed of Italian and French military organizations. It 
numbered 2500 men. 

There were 4000 men in the Ninth Division, representing the German-American 
societies. The Tenth Division was made up of different organizations and contained about 
twelve thousand men, and aside from the independent organizations there were 8000 members 
of the Landwehr-\'erein. 

The line of march was to Fifty-ninth street, where the ceremonies attendant upon the 
unveiling of the Columbus monument were held. Among those who took part were : 
Vice-President ]\Iorton ; Governor Flower and staff ; Senator Hill ; the officers of the Italian 
cruiser "Baiisan. Addresses were made by Carlo Barsetti, president of the Columbus Monu- 
ment Executive Committee ; General Lingi Palma d' Cesnola, in behalf of the Italian 
residents of America; Di Lingi Reversi, in behalf of // Progrcsso Italo-A)i!crica>to ; his 
Excellency Baron Saverio Fava, Italian ]\Iinister, in behalf of the Italian Government ; his 
Honor Hugh J. Grant, his Excellency Roswell P. Flower, Governor of New York ; and 
Charles G. F. Wahle, Jr., secretary of the Committee of One Hundred. Archbishop Cor- 
rigan blessed the monument and it was unveiled b}- Annie Barsetti, daughter of the president 
of the Columbus Monument Executive Committee. During the ceremonies the Italian 
band played Italian and American hymns, and the batter\- gave the national salute. 

The decorations of jjrivate and public buildings for the Columbus festivities in New 
York were estimated to have cost over one million dollars. Including the fireworks, 
gunpowder, illuminations, etc., the total cost of the celebration probably exceeded two 
million dollars. The event was alike successful and honorable to New York City and the 
nation. 

Some of the arches imder which the great procession marched were exquisitely designed, 
notably the Columbus memorial arch, erected at Fifth avenue and Fifty-ninth street. The 
military part of the parade disbanded after passing under this arch, and the festivities were 
concluded with a banquet and ball given in the building of the Lenox Lyceum. 

DEDICATORY CEREMONIES AT CHCCAGO. 

As early as the iStli of October the crowds began to pour into Chicago from every 
part of the earth. There had gathered no fewer than one million visitors. Never before 
in histor}' had so many people assembled on a festal occasion. The pent-up enthusiasm of 
a century broke in a tidal-wave. Four hundred years, with their blessings and marvelous 
progress, were to receive the offerings of a world's applause, and be bathed with libations 
of gratitude. 

The dedicatory festivities began with an inaugural reception, banquet and ball, at the 
Auditorium, on the evening of the 19th. Four thousand invitations were issued to the 
most prominent personages in America, and to the representatives of foreign powers. The 
President of the United States was unable to be present owing to the fatal illness of Mrs. 
Harrison, and the duties which he was expected to perform were devolved upon Vice- 
President Morton. A more distinguished gathering was never known among men, and the 
wealth of ornamentation was in harmony with the beauty and importance of the assembk e. 
The cabinet, judges of the supreme court, diplomatic corps, governors, army officers, ma5'ors 
of leading cities, world's fair officials, and the fairest women in the land were gathered at 
the banquet. The reception and ball was given in the Auditorium, but the banquet was 
spread on the top floor of the adjoining Studebaker building, which had been made an 
annex by cutting arched passages connecting it with the Auditorium. 



536 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



A MAMMOTH PARADE. 

Thursday, October 20, was appointed as a day of parade, in which one hundred thous- 
and persons were to participate. Early in the morning vast crowds began to gather and 
occupy places along the sidewalks. The line was not formed until after the noon hour, and 
it was nearly 2 o'clock before the signal was given for the procession to move. The march 





COLTTMBrS MONrMENT, NEW YORK CITV. 



was by double rank, twenty-five file front, over the following route : Forming on Michigan 
avenue, north to Lake street, west to State, south to Adams, west past the reviewing stand 
at the post-office to Franklin, thence south to Jackson, east to State, and south to Congress, 
where the procession ended. 



EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 



537 



Fully one hundred thousand men were in line. Uniforms were worn by many of the 
marching bodies. The crowds that viewed the spectacle were almost infinite. The side- 
walks along the entire line were crowded with humanity ; the housetops were black with 
masses, and every window along the way was alive with eager faces. To the natural points 
of view were added tier upon tier of seats, starting upon raised platforms and lifted to the 
eaves of the houses. The thrill of exultation was nowhere so manifest as when, in regular 
step, with banners held aloft, the wonderful array of humanity filed into the space in front 
of the reviewing stand. 



It 



CEREMONIES AT THE FAIR GROUNDS. 

Chicago on the day succeeding was densely thronged in all her avenues, hotels and 
conveyances. This was the day set apart for dedicating the World's Fair buildings, 
ajjpeared to the observer that the entire popula- 
tion of the United States had come to Chicago to 
witness the ceremonies. As early as seven o'clock 
the movement toward Jackson Park began, the pres- 
sure increasing as the hours advanced. By street 
cars, elevated roads, Illinois Central trains and steam- 
boats, all classes and conditions made their way. 

Michigan avenue and lake front were soon 
thronged with people. The nodding plumes of 
advancing cavalrymen wefe seen toward the south, 
followed by troop after troop, wheeling into line and 
forming in front of the Auditorium, where they 
were joined by four batteries of artillery. The 
regulars were an escort to the Vice-President, cabi- 
net, judges of the Supreme Court, and other digni- 
taries of Church and State, who were to take part 
in the exercises. Every adjacent street was lined 
with carriages, waiting for distinguished occupants ; 
twenty rounds from the batteries was the signal for 
the march to begin. 

The procession moved southward with General 
Nelson Miles and his staff at the head of a compan}- 
of cavalrymen whose j-ellow plumes, bright uni- 
forms and brilliant caparisons rendered the scent 
one of great spirit. Following these was a mounted 
military band leading a troop of cavalry in a solid 
line twelve deep. These in turn preceded a troop 
of white cavalry, and Indian and colored dragoons, 
while behind was a regular battery, followed by 
a section of the National Guard, preceding sixty Toledo cadets on bicycles. In the rear 
was a long line of carriages bearing the distinguished personages that were to officiate in 
the dedication, led by Vice-President Morton, who was accompanied by President Palmer, 
of the World's Fair Commission. Then came other carriages filled with cabinet 
members, judges, governors, and World's Fair officials, the whole forming a procession, 
more than a mile in length. 




GENERAL NELSON A. MILES. 



538 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

One hundred and fifty thousand invitations had been issued, admitting the holders to 
the Manufactures Building; seats were provided for 120,000 persons, and everj- seat was 
occupied. The dedicatory exercises were perhaps the most imposing ever witnessed, and 
the enthusiasm was unbounded. The night jubilee consisted of the grandest display of 
firewoi'ks that the world had ever seen. Three exhibitions were arranged to take place 
simultaneously in Washington Park on the south, Lincoln Park on the north, and Garfield 
Park on the west side, each display being a counterpart of the other, and the programs 
identical. It is estimated that more than half a million people were witnesses of the three 
displays, which were under the direction of James Pain & Sons. 

The exhibition began shortly after eight o'clock with a discharge of 100 fifteen-inch 
maroons. These went blazing through the canopy of night to an altitude of 800 feet, 
■where they exploded like a fiery eruption of the heavens and fell back in a thousand flaming 
streams. This beautiful effect was followed by a dazzling illumination of the parks with 
500 prismatic lights. These were set off simultaneously by means of electricity-, and 
changed colors five times, flooding the landscape with red, white and blue, and leaving an 
expiring tint of terra-cotta as a recognition of the newly adopted municipal colors of 
Chicago. 

hi each of the parks five bombshells, sixty inches in circumference, and of a weight of 
no ])ounds, were projected from mortars to an altitude of 700 feet, where they exploded 
with deafening detonations and filled the sky with a picture of fiery splendor. One of the 
most novel and interesting pieces in the displa\- was representations of the American flag 
floating in the .sky at a height 0/2000 feet ! The flag was 300 feet in length and presented 
a design never before attempted in aerial work. It was attached to a balloon, under the 
control of Professor Baldwin, the aeronaut, who carried it to the required altitude, and then 
lighted the fuse connected with the flag. A mai-velous thing followed. Almost instantly 
the banner spread itself like a canopy, and taking fire, burned for five minutes with all its 
colors intensified, thus affording a spectacle of grandeur that had never been exceeded at 
an}' pyrotechnic exhibition. 

There were several set fire-pieces upon which the best artists of the world had been 
engaged for many months. These produced original and magnificent effects. One of the 
pieces occupied 2000 square feet of space and bore the inscription in flame : " Chicago 
Welcomes the Nations of the Earth — 1492-1S92." This flaming legend was supported by 
two fiery eagles, and above them was a similitude of the prominent Columbian Exposition 
huildings. 

The next set piece covered 2500 square feet and presented in fire the sailing of 
Columbus from Palos. The fleet of three vessels, the Santa A/ana, the P/)ita and the 
Nina, was beautifully exhibited riding on a fiery sea. This was the largest piece ever 
shown in any pyrotechnic display. As a companion piece there was a fiery reproduction, 
on a similar scale, of the landing of Cohnnbus on the island of vSan Salvador, representing 
him in the act of planting the standard of Ferdinand and Isabella in the presence of an 
awe-stricken group of Indians. Another piece showed Vesuvius in a state of eruption. It 
looked as if the centre of the lake shore in front of the spectators' stand was a belching 
crater. When the volcano died out the flame spread along the plaza till it took the form 
of a forest fire. When the flaming trees had burned, the scene assumed the appearance of 
a prairie fire, the flames creeping along and licking the dust in every direction. 

Then the mortar again shot up globes that burst and filled the sk\- with showers of 
every hue. Thousands of people on the grandstand, in Lincoln Park, rose to take in the 



EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 



539 



splendid view of the Grant inoiiuineiit. The bronze features of the General were never 
more brilliantly displayed than they were in the glory of that gorgeous illumination. 

Five hundred four-pound colored rockets were fired simultaneously from three positions, 
blending continuously in varied tints. This was followed by the discharge from a mortar 
of fift}- iifteen-inch shells, representing poppies in a cornfield. In the background appeared 
a nest of fiery cobras, that writhed against the sky. Three huge fountains of fire belched 




THE SANTA MARIA, PINTA AND NINA. 



forth along the line. Shells burst to the left and right, representing Indian jugglery, pris- 
matic torrents, and Venetian national colors. For 400 feet along the plaza one ton of 
material lit up the waters of the lagoon with colored lights, while small pieces representing 
sheaves of wheat appeared at inter\'als. 

A grand feature of the exhibition was the Columbian bouquet, produced by a discharge 
of 5000 large rockets. This was followed by a silver fire wheel, over twenty feet in diameter, 



540 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



with intersecting centres. On each side of the wheel were two others which scattered circle 
of golden fire. For several minntes numerons small pieces occnpied the attention of tlv 
spectators, representing swarms of fireflies, bouquets, star-spangled banners, and fier)' serpents.' 
The last and grandest piece of the evening was a representation of Niagara Falls. A torrent 
of fire 400 feet long poured down from the top of a frame, a distance of fifty feet, mingling 
with the waters of the lagoon. 

The dedication of the World's Fair proper was concluded on Friday, October 21st, but 
the presence of so many notables from all parts of the world, as well as the attendance of 
large bodies of the military, prompted the representatives of several States to seize the 
opportunity for making an imposing dedication of the State buildings that were nearing 
completion. Programs were accordingly prepared for the formal opening of six of the 
Commonwealth buildings as an appropriate sequel to the general exercises of the week. 

Thus were the ceremonies of dedication concluded. The immense crowds of people 
that had come to Chicago from ever>- point of the compass, began to depart. The crowds 
in the stations on Saturday night were very great, yet the accommodations appeared to be 
ample, as they had been in the city during the several days of the celebration. Ever}- 
expression was a congratulation or plaudit for the magnificent sights the people had witnessed, 
and with which the nation had been inspired. 



I 



^' .: ., 




I 




CHAPTER XXXII. 

CLEVELAND'S SECOND ADMINISTRATION; 

EXPOSITION. 



WORLD'S COLUMBIAN 



INTERVAL, between the dedication of the 
buildings for the World's Columbian Exposi- 
tion at Chicago and the opening of that Ex- 
position in the following May was filled with 
the Presidential election, with the excitements 
consequent thereon, and with the change of 
administrations, on the 4th of March, 1893. 

The victorious Democratic party again 
went into power, not only in the Executive 
Department, but in both branches of Con- 
gress. In the Senate, however, the majority 
of that party was so small and unstable as to 
make uncertain any measures other than those upon which there was 
complete harmony of opinion. President Cleveland went back to the 
White House with a tremendous support from the people at large, and 
only a modified support from his own party. He was committed to two lines of policy 
•concerning which there was a marked want of concurrence with his views — to two principles 
which were destined to be the reefs on which his popularity and influence were to be shaken 
and virtually wrecked before the close of his administration. 

The first of these was the policy of a reform in the tariff, which if carried out must 
needs lose him the support of all the manufacturing monopolies in the country'. The second 
was his detennined and sullen opposition to that system of bimetallic coinage which, from 
being the constitutional system and tmvarying policy of the United States from the founda- 
tion of our government to 1873, had been broken down in the interest of the gold-producing 
nations, with the general result of the substitution in our own currency of a long dollar, 
worth about a hundred and sixty cents, for the dollar of the law and the contract. The 
attitude of the President on this question, though highly acceptable to the interested fund- 
holding and debt-holding classes in the United States and throughout the world, was adverse 
to the interests of all the producers and debtors of the world, to an extent that can hardly 
be reckoned with the arithmetic of money values. 

The new Cabinet was constituted as follows : Secretary of State, Walter Q. Gresham, 
■of Illinois ; Secretary of the Treasury, John G. Carlisle, of Kentucky ; Secretary of War, 
Daniel S. Lamo;it, of New York ; Secretary of the Navy, Hilary A. Herbert, of Alabama ; 
Secretary of the Interior, Hoke Smith, of Georgia; Postmaster-General, Wilson S. Bissell, 
of New York ; Secretary of Agriculture, J. S. Morton, of Nebraska ; Attorney-General, 
Richard Olney, of Massachusetts. 

In the President's inaugural address, he followed the obvious lines of his well-known 
policy. He dwelt in particular upon the necessity of a complete reform in tiie revenue 
■system of the United States, urging upon Congress the duty of substituting for high 

(541) 



542 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

protection the policy of customs-duties for revenue, with only such incidental protective feat- 
ures as might appear in the nature of the case. From the very beginning, however, it was 
manifest that the adoption of the new policy was to be hampered and impeded by everv 
kind of cross-purpose known in legislative bodies, and in particular by the interests of those 
who were the representatives of the protected industries. 

From this condition of civil and political affairs, the attention and interest of the people 
were soon fortunately directed to another and more humane aspect of civilization. On the 
31st of May, 1893, the World's Columbian E.xposition was opened amid salvos of exultation 
by President Cleveland, who pressed an electric button and set all the immense machinery 
in motion. The firing of cannons, the waving of flags, the playing of bands, were the 
vehement manifestations of the general rejoicing. The marvelous "White City " of archi- 
tectural splendors now presented a sight that was dazzlingly beautiful. . To the visitor it 
seemed a dream of Oriental magnificence, affording such an object lesson of energy, capacity 
and genius as no other country had ever revealed. 

It was quite two months after the opening before the disturbing sounds of saw, hammer 
and rumbling wagons ceased. The unsightly scaffolding was at length removed ; all the 
exhibits were disposed, and the gigantic Fair was presented in its perfected and symmetrical 
grandeur. No transformation scene was ever more extraordinary than that which revealed 
Jackson Park converted from a wild, semi-chaotic covert of tangled brushwood and noxious 
marsh into a Heliopolis of splendor, made beautiful by the sublimest arts that ever found 
expression. 

The Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building held its proud position as the most 
imposing structure ever reared on earth. It occupied an area of more than thirty acres, 
lifting its imperious towers to an altitude of 250 feet. But though excelling in proportions, 
the Manufactures Building held no other pre-eminence above the many other structures in 
Jackson Park. So varied, so select, so excellent, so beautiful, so artistic, and so gigantic 
were these edifices that all the wealth of the globe seemed to be here gathered and expressed 
as the e.xiDression of peace triumphant. 

The architecture of many buildings showed a wide range of treatment ; yet in the 
style and grouping there was a remarkable harmony — a blending of color and design as 
charming as unique. The material used in the construction was necessarily perishable — to 
the end that the most imposing effects might be produced at a minimum of cost. It 
required a genius of economy to constnict a magnificent palace at the exijense of a few 
thousand dollars ; but the genir.s Avas not wanting for the work. A cheap material was 
found in "staff," a composition of cement and plaster-of-paris, possessing little endurance, 
but having, when properly applied, the appearance of white stone. Over the skeleton 
structure of the several bitildings this composition was laid, giving to them the appearance 
of marble palaces. The embellishment of statuary was added in the same manner. The 
roadways were artistically laid out, and substantially made of macadam, with a top dressing 
of red gravel, while the lagoon of stagnant water was converted into a \'enetian canal that 
wound through the Park in a most picturesque manner. 

Over the course of this beautiful canal a number of electric launches and gondolas 
plied, carrying throngs of delighted passengers. Communication between \-arious parts of 
the ground was facilitated also by means of an elevated intramural railway. This made a 
circuit of the whole area at such a rate of speed as rendered the aerial voyage exceedinglj' 
agreeable. A refreshing and restful ride was likewise provided by what was known as the 
movable sidewalk, a u.nique application of the principle of the endless chain. A double 



I 




PRESIDENT CLEVELAND AND HIS CABINET. 

Hilary A. Herbert, Sec'v of Navv. Richard Oliiey, Sec'y of State. J. Sterling :\Iorton, Scc'y of Agriculture. 
Wm. L. Wilson, Poslmafter Geucral. Grover Cleveland, President. Hoke Smith, Secretary of Interior. 

Dan'l S. Lamont, Secretary of War. John G. Carlisle, Sec'y of Trc.-s. judson Harmon, Attorney General. 



544 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

platform was operated at diflferent rates of speed, so as to enable passengers to step on or off 
while the sidewalk was in motion. On the speedier platform seats were arranged, and on 
these the passengers were carried over a pier that extended one thousand feet into the lake. 
Roller, or invalid, chairs were used b)- those who could afford the luxury of such convejance. 

THE LEADING EXHIBITS. 

To give a satisfactory description of all the exhibits of the Exposition would require 
volumes. All nations and lands being represented, the Fair was a universal, commercial, 
and ethnographic congress, in which were brought together all conceivable products 
cf forge, loom, field, and finger ; a place where gathered all races of men from the Esqui- 
maux to the Equatorial blacks ; and where cannibal savagery shook hands with the highest 
t\pes of civilization. 

While it is not desirable to describe all the hundreds of thousands of wonderful and 
beautiful displays, yet some of the exhibits were such as to require the particular attention 
of the reader. 

The Government Building was filled with objects that claimed the closest interest, and 
next to Manufactures Building drew the largest crowds of visitors. The exhibits included 
many things of special interest and curiosity. Here were displayed the most ancient as 
well as the most improved implements of war. Here were gathered the fire-locks, fuses, 
arquebuses, match-locks, blunderbusses and other obsolete firearms, arranged in such a 
manner as to show the evolution of weaponry — to display in comparison with the latest 
revolving breech-loading arms and the heaviest cannon for coast defences, the rudest 
weapons of savagery. Besides these was placed an arsenal in which the machinerj' for 
boring great guns was in operation, and the making of cartridges was illustrated by the 
actual industry. All the arts of war were admirably represented by figures in proper uniform ; 
the pontoon corps, sappers and miners, the topographic corps, signal corps, field hospitals, and 
effigies of privates, officers, troopers, and foot soldiers with the uniforms and accoutrements 
of the whole world militant. 

In another department of the same building was the fishery' exhibit, with examples of 
nearly every fresh and salt water fish and fur-bearing pelagic animal. A large fish-hatching 
establishment was also shown in operation ; and a display was made of boats and implements 
used in the whale, cod, and sturgeon fisheries. 

Between the Government Building and the lake was a broad plaza where several pieces 
of ordnance were mounted, including rifled cannon, inortars and rapid-firing guns. Near 
the water's edge, by the walk, were sections of heavy ship-armor that had been pierced by 
steel-pointed shells, exhibiting the extraordinary penetrating power of improved projectiles. 
A full-sized battle-ship, with mounted guns and a complete complement of men and officers, 
lay alongside the pier, on which were daily naval drills. Near by was a life-saving station 
with full equipment of boats and accessories. The numerous white tents, in which the 
members were quartered, added the general appearance of an army encamped in the midst 
of the tremendous implements of war. 

THE VIKING SHIP. 

A curious sight in this vicinity was the Viking Ship, from Norway. The antique 
vessel was manned by a crew of Norwegian sailors. The Viking scallop lay moored beside 
the shore near the battle-.ship. It was a copy, down to the minutest detail of construction, 
of the ship found at Gokstad, Norway, in 1889 — a vessel supposed to have sailed the seas 




« 

w 
a 



'54?) 



546 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

one thousand vears ao;o. Tlie old relic of the Vikings is now sacredly preserved in the 
National Museum at Christiania. The new, like the old, was an open boat seventy-five feet 
in leno-th over all, sixty-seven and one-half feet at the water line, and sixty feet of keel. 
The propulsion was by means of a square sail, or by oars when the weather pennittcd 
their use. 

In this open boat, in the early summer of 1893, Captain Magnus Anderson and eleven 
companions came from Bergen, Norway, to New London, Conn., in forty-three days. The 
daring company passed safely through more than one severe storm, and with fair wind and 
smooth sailing averaging ten or twelve miles an hour came bravely through the North Atlantic. 
This nautical feat makes that of the Saitta AJaria, the Piiita and the Nina seem insignificant. 
It was in such a craft, or canoe, that Leif Ericson made his voyage from Greenland to tl:e 
then unknown regions of the midnight land of the West in the }-ear 985 ; such a vessel first 
touched the shores of the New World. The successful passage of the Atlantic by this frail 
craft must effectually remove all doubt as to the ability of Ericson, Thorfinn Karlsefne 
and Bjorne, those adventurous Vikings of the tenth century, to accomplish the voyages 
credited to them by the Sagas. 

FLEET OF COLUMBUS. 

Below the \'iking ship, and in front of the Government Building, was anchored a 
reproduction of the fleet in which Columbus made his first voyage of discovery. The Saiila 
Maria^ the Pinla and the Nina^ each manned by a Spanish crew, and each built to reproduce 
the original, even to cordage, equipment, armament and colors, were among the great wonders 
of the Exposition. The three vessels had already participated in the naval review and 
celebration of the New World discovery, August 3, 1892, at Palos, the port of departure. 
In Februarv following, the vessels sailed for America, the Nina and the Pinta being 
under escort of the United States cruisers Boniiiigton and Neivark, and the Santa Maria 
accompanied by a Spanish man-of-war. The squadron arrived at Hampton Roads, April 
2 1st, 1893 — the place of rendezvous of the foreign and American navies that appeared in 
the great naval parade in New York. After their participation in that great event the three 
vessels were sent in tow, by way of the St. Lawrence and lake route, to Chicago, where they 
arrived in due season and were given a national welcome. 

Near by the three Columbian ships, on an elevation overlooking the lake, was a repio- 
duction of the Palos Convent of La Rabida, where Columbus once and again halted in a 
half-famished condition. There he besought the good Father Perez to give a morsel of food 
to stay the hunger of himself and his son Diego. Every detail of the convent was in repro- 
duction of La Rabida. Its quaint rooms were filled with Columbian relics, including a 
casket in which reposed for a while the bones of the .great discoverer. 

THE KRUPP CANNON. 

South of the La Rabida Convent was a building of considerable size, devoted to 
Knipp's exhibit of great guns for field, siege and fortress and man-of-war. Here might be 
seen the greatest display of giant weaponry that was ever made. Among the collection, 
rising above its fellow engines of destruction, was a 122-ton gun, the largest that the great 
German cannon-maker has ever produced. It constituted a wonder worth miles of travel. 
The 1200-pound steel-pointed projectile lay in a cradle of the hydraulic loading-crane beside 
the gun, and likewise a canister bag containing 600 pounds of powder to be used in pro- 
pelling the tremendous thunderbolt to a distance of twenty miles. This immense gun, and 



i 



EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 547 

its macliinery for loading and firing, reqnired a large ship for its transportation across the 
ocean, and two specially-made steel cars for its conveyance to Chicago. As a mark of 
his respect for America, Krnpp presented the gun and its machinery to the city of Chicago, 
where it remains perinanentl)-, an enduring symbol of the reign of force and a memento of 
the Columbian Exposition. 

Still further towards the south was an Esquimaux village, and an Alaskan exhibit of 
natives, boats, huts and totem poles. Beyond these a little way were teocallis, or prehistoric 
Central American temples. Near by was a reproduction of the cliff-dwellings of the Rio 
Moncos Caiion, in Southwest Colorado. In the museum were implements of stone and 
bone, and also numerous iitensils of domestic use made of clay ; also mats, sandals and 
wrappings deftly woven from the yucca palm, to the raising of which the cliff-dwellers 
devoted most of their labors. Here were also shown a score or more of skulls, and several 
mummied bodies of this ancient and extinct race. 

DISPLAV OF FINE ARTS. 

The Fine Arts Building was situated at the north end of the lagoon, from which the 
structure arose in classical grandeur. Those who sailed the lagoon might alight from the 
gondolas on broad flights of stone steps leading up through the colonnade to the southern 
portal. Besides the principal structure, there were two annexes, in like architectural style. 
In this building were displayed the art products — the paintings in particular — of all the 
nations of the world. Certain it is that no other exhibit of pictorial glories, with the 
possible exception of that of the Paris Exposition of 1889, ever rivaled the display here 
made in the art department of the Columbian Fair held in an American city, founded 
within the memory of men still living ! 

It is not practicable within the limits of this work to enter into a detailed account of 
the thousands of art trophies exhibited at the great Exposition. Perhaps the most splendid 
of all the displays was that of France, though they were not wanting many critics who 
conceded the palm to the artists of Great Britain. Some considered the display made by 
the artists of the United States equal to any other. The departments of Austria and 
Belgium were also of the highest merit. The Slavic artists, both Russians and Poles, con- 
tributed many pictures worthy of immortality. It is probable that the French section in 
which the high-light and realistic paintings were exhibited was the most splendid of all. 
Here, though the throngs were not equal to those ever present among the displays of 
material industries and merely useful arts, the intellectual and ideal men and women of 
great races gathered from day to day, feasting their eyes upon the most magnificent products 
of the human genius. 

Only a few of the splendid paintings of the Exposition may here be mentioned. Of 
these, the following list will give no more than a hint of that world of pictorial wonders 
with which the walls of the building of Fine Arts were so magnificently adorned : 

"The Himt Ball," by Jules L. Stewart, United States; "The Gambler's Wife," by 
Marcus Stone, England ; " The Last Rays of the Sun," by Louis Emile Adan, France ; 
" A Reading from Homer," by Alma Tadema, England ; " On the Yacht Namouna," by 
Jules L. Stewart, United States ; " Sunday Morning in Norway," by Hans Dahl, Norway ; 
" Presentation of Richelieu to Henry IV.," by G. Aureli, France ; " End of Summer," by 

kR. Collin, France ; " Suffer Little Children to Come unto Me," by Julius Schmid, Austria ; 
"Going Home," by A. Marais, France; "Evening Song," by F. Zmurko, Poland; "The 
Betrothal," by G. Rochegrosse, France; "The Old Shepherd," by Aime Perret, France ; 



k 



548 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

" Mass in Britanny," by Walter Gay, United States ; " Tullia," In- Ernst Hildebrande, 
Germany ; " Evicted," by L. Gasperini, Italy ; " Narofjord," Norway, by A. Nonnauu, 
Germany ; " The Cloister Kitchen," by Edonard Grntzner, Germany ; " The Innocent 
Victim," by Seymour S. Thomas, United States ; " Public Whipping in Barcelona," by F. 
Galofre Oiler, Spain ; " Algerian Women on the Terrace," by G. Simoni, Italy ; " A Bearer 
of Despatches," by A. de Neuville, France ; " The Sick Bed," by H. Lessing, Gemiany ; 
" End of the Wheat Harvest," by J. J. Veyrassat, Holland ; " Love's Dream," by W. J. 
Martens, Holland ; " Leif Ericson," by Christian Krohg, Norwa\- ; " Summer," by W. 
Reynolds Stephens, England ; "On the Thames," by Eugene Vail, United States; "The 
Empty Saddle," by S. E. Waller, England ; " The Women at the Tomb " and " Our Lady 
of the Angels," by W. A. Bouguereau, France ; " Young Girls Going to the Procession," by 
Jules Breton, France; "Contrast," by Rogent Lorenzale, Spain; "Soap Bubbles," by 
Elizabeth Gardner, United States ; " Washington and his Mother," by Louis Edonard 
Fonrnier, France ; " Romeo and Juliet," by Constantin Makovsky, Russia ; " The Men- 
agerie," by Paul Meyerheim, Germany. 

Nearly opposite the building of Fine Arts, at the other entrance of the lagoon, was 
the great structure devoted to the display of electrical apparatus and phenomena. This 
exhibit was perhaps the most characteristic of all in this — that it represented the scientific 
siDirit of our age. No such display of the wonders of electricity and of the machines and 
contrivances in which that mighty and all-pervading force has been made to show its sublime 
results was ever before possible — not even at the Paris Exhibition of 1889; for even the 
quadrennium intervening had wrought wonders in the progress of the electrical arts. If 
the visitors to the Department of Fine Arts included the idealists, the dreamers and poets 
of the world, those who thronged the building in which the electrical display was made 
included the thinkers, inventors and forerunners of mankind in all those arts that have 
force for their minister and contrivance for their visible expression. 

Over to the west was placed what was known a.s the Transportation Building. The 
fundamental idea in this great structure and in the display made therein was to exhibit iu 
orderly succession the various stages of progress made b}' man in his means of locomotion 
and conveyance. The exhibits in this department were arranged in order of chronological 
development, showing each stage from the rudest contrivance of barbarians and savages to 
the most splendid and perfect means of transportation in our day — from the lumbering cart 
on land and the rude dugout on running stream to the magnificent train of parlor cars and 
sleeping coaches and the greatest steamships that plow the deep. The entrance, or doorway, 
to the Transportation Building, designed by the architect Sullivan, was one of the glories 
of the World's Columbian Exposition, being declared by many to be the most splendid 
entrance ever constructed by man. 

Space fails in which to enumerate even the leading edifices in which the great Exposi- 
tion of the works of the hitman race was made. The exhibit of Fish and Fisheries was 
given in a building not far from the eastern anne.x of the Fine Arts Building. Here, in 
huge tanks, were arranged in scientific order, all the known species of fresh-water fishes, 
and all the more important variety of fishes from the sea. These might be seen, as in their 
native habitats, sporting and feeding and reproducing in the manner of nature. Here were 
sharks, dogfish, rays, skates, flounders, gunards, lampreys, lobsters, crabs, soles, star-fish, and 
fresh- water creatures, from whales to infusorite. 

The peaceful aspects and beautiful products of the natural world were displayed in the 
Horticultural Building, where were gathered nearly all the varieties of flowers and fniits 



EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 549 

growing in the world. Here the visitor might study the varying products of the earth, 
from the giant ferns of Australia to the hardy lichens of the arctic coasts ; from the bread- 
fruit of the tropics to the apples of Siberia ; from the roses of Persia to the microscopic 
blossoms of the snow-cliffs of the Sierras. 

Among the features of interest at the World's Columbian Exposition was the Midway 
Plaisance, lying between Jackson and Washington Parks. This celebrated place may be 
regarded as a sort of ethnological adjunct to the Exposition proper. It was a feature which, 
like all other things, has grown from small beginnings. The origin of it may be traced 
back as far as the Crystal Palace Exposition at London, in 1851. The Plaisance was about 
a mile in length, and quarter of a mile in width. It had the form of a broad street, or 
avenue, with the exhibits, or features, arranged on either side. The shows here gathered 
were essentially racial — ethnological. Nearly all the half-civilized nations of the world 
had sent thither colonies of their people, bringing their architecture, rude arts and customs 
with them. The historical element was not wanting; for many of the establishments 
represented former aspects of the social life and industries of mankind. Such was the Irish 
village, and such was tlie old German keep, or castle, with its narrow wavs and surrounding 
moat and bridges. The Javanese village was one of many of its kind, showing, as if in 
object lesson, the natives of remote and insular regions in the same habits and surroundings 
as in their own country. Of this kind was the village of Samoans, and of similar order 
were the establishments of the Chinese, the Algerians, the Moors, and the Copts. Oriental 
theatres were another feature of the Plaisance, in which the Western races were able to 
witness as in the East the dramatical plays and sensuous dances of the North African and 
West Asian peoples. The advantage of the things to be seen in the Plaisance and of a 
knowledge of them to the historical and ethnical inquirer was very great ; but the vicious 
classes made these object lessons of the Orient to be no more than a gratification of the 
baser feelings and mere sensual curiosity. 

Any sketch of the World's Columbian Exposition would be incomplete which did not 
mention with some note of wonder and praise the gigantic wheel erected in Jackson Park, 
from designs and plans formed by a young engineer of Illinois, named G. W. G. Ferris. 
This daring projector of the greatest revolving spectacle ever witnessed by man was a 
graduate of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute of Troy, N. Y. Though only thirty-five years 
of age, he had already distinguished himself as a builder of cantilever bridges. The Ferris 
wheel was little short of a miracle. It was made for the most part of steel. The materials 
were prepared at Detroit. The central shaft was forty-five feet in length, and thirty-two 
inches in diameter. This was raised to the gudgeons in which it revolved at a height of a 
hundred and forty feet. The circumference of the wheel was occupied with thirty-six 
passenger cars, hung in the outer rim, each car having a capacity of fifty passengers. The 
cars, in going over, rose to the height of 268 feet from the earth. The passengers in 
going over rose skyward until they might have looked down a distance of fifty feet on 
the top of Bunker Hill monument, if that tremendous obelisk had stood near by. The 
building skill of Ferris in the construction of this monstrous contrivance was not only 
vindicated, but the enterprise itself proved to be popular and highly profitable to the 
management. 

Connected with the World's Columbian Exposition were a number of notable con- 
gresses. The chief of these was the Congress of Religions, the sessions of which were held 
during the latter half of September. At this remarkable meeting were gathered repre- 
sentatives of nearly all the great religions and philosophies of mankind. Mohammedans, 



550 PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Buddhists, Confucians and Christians sat down together in aniit_\ , and discussed for mauy 
days the tenets of their respecti\e faiths and tlie points of excellence which each claimed 
for his own. 

THE LAST OF THE "WHITE CITy." 

It had been the purpose of the managers of the World's Columbian Exposition to close 
the same on the 30th of October. It was intended to make that day, if possible, the most 
glorious of all the days of the memorable summer. An elaborate program was pre])ared, 
and great preparations made for the closing exercises, when suddenl)-, on the 28th of the 
month, the city was plunged into consternation and grief by the assassination in his own 
house of Mayor Carter H. Harrison, to whose great abilities, persistency and unwearied 
exertion not a little of the success of the World's Fair should be attributed. It had been 
his dutv for fullv six months to act as the representative of the city in its relations with 
distinguished foreign visitors, committees, delegations and the like, and in all of these duties 
he had borne himself with distinguished ability and dignity. A lunatic named Pendergast 
conceived that the Mayor should have appointed him to office, and under this hallucination 
gained entrance to the Mayor's home, and shot him dead. The ceremonies that had been 
planned for the close of the Exposition were accordingly abandoned, and on the 30tli of the 
month the October sun went down on the so-called "White City," o\er which funereal silence 
settled with the night. 

The great structures demanded for the accommodation of the World's Colunibiau 
Exposition cost approximately ninteen mllions of dollars ! Nor does it appear that the 
construction was other than economical. Nearly every edifice in Jackson Park was 
erected for the summer, and without respect to permanence. It would appear that in 
this particular the management was at fault. Perhaps it was not foreseen that the tre- 
mendous creations of the year could not be removed and destroyed without producing a 
sentiment of regret, if not of actual pain, to the whole American people. It had been 
wiser that a considerable part of the buildings at least should be permanent. The managers 
of Jackson Park, however, had decreed otherwise. The foolish edict was that the Park should 
bv restored, as nearly as possible, to its former condition — a thing virtualh' imposssible. 

After the Exposition, the demolition of the White Cit>' was undertaken. To the eye 
the work was as if the Goths and Vandals of ten ages had been loosed to do their will on 
the sublime-st culture of the nineteenth century. While the work of tearing down and 
removing the great buildings was in progress, a fire broke out, which became first a confla- 
gration, and afterward a tornado of flaming horror, the light of which might have been 
visible a hundred miles. The elements conspired at the last to reduce to gas and ashes the 
residue of that sublime aggregation of structures, the equal of Avhich had not hitherto 
been seen by the sons of men. 

To the nineteen million dollars expended for buildings was added the expenditure of 
about ten millions in other outlays. The total cost of the Exposition was reported at 
$30,558,849. The total receipts were $32,796,103. The result of an excess of receipts 
over expenditures might well be noted as the crowning mar\'el of the enterprise. Our 
wonder in this particular is heightened when we reflect that the premonitory swirl of the 
great financial panic of 1893-94 fell fatally on the country during the months of the 
Exposition. Moreover, the subdued fear of a cholera epidemic was among the people — a 
circumstance not to be overlooked when we reflect upon the exposure to which the city of 
Chicago was necessarily subjected in the summer of 1S93. Notwithstanding all this, the 
Columbian Exposition went forward to a triumphant conclusion. Neither the great financial 



EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 



55t 



panic, the fear of cholera, nor the ill-disguised and snarling jealousy of New York City, 
nor all combined were able to prevent the glorious consummation of the work and the con- 
gratulation of all the civilized peoples of the globe on the splendid results of the enterprise. 
Before the close of the Columbian Exposition, the so-called Cherokee Strip, a fertile 
and attractive part of the Indian Territory, was opened for settlement to the Whites. In 
accordance with the law of Congress, six million acres of desirable lands were offered for 
sale. The result showed that the passion for land-ownership and for settlement and coloni- 
zation and the building up of States is not yet extinct in the American people. The date 
fixed for the sale of the lands was the i6th of September, 1893. There was a great rush 
for the new territory, and about one hundred thousand settlers suddenly threw themselves 
into it with a zeal of competition for homes that amounted almost to battle. 



SILVER AND TARIFF LEGISLATION. 

Meanwhile, the political life had dragged on through contention to disaster. On the 
30th of October the so-called Sherman law was repealed by Congress. This might well 
appear to be the last of that series of acts which, 
extending over a period of twenty }'ears, had finally 
resulted in the establishment of the single gold 
standard of values in the United States. It seemed 
that the international combination of the gold in- 
terests of two continents had finally triumphed, to 
the incalculable disadvantage of the producing 
•classes in all civilized nations. Step by step, the 
conspiracy had gone on, until at last the bimetallic 
•constitutional dollar of the law and the contract had 
been adroitly done away in the interest and under 
the dictation of the fund-holding classes of Europe 
.and America, and to the woful hurt of the rest of 
mankind. 

All this had been done under the name and 
in the guise of upholding the national credit. A 
■change of all contracts — such as a king of the Rlid- 
■dle Ages could not have made among his subjects 
without driving them to revolution — was effected 
"by a series of intrigues the history of which as 
hereafter written will constitute the most terrible 
.arraignment of American statesmanship to be found 
in all our national annals. The first, most obvious, 

.and most disastrous result of the work was the precipitation and intensifying of the financial 
^anic and universal prostration of business, the parallel of which had never before been 
witnessed in our country-. The tariflf legislation of this epoch, by unsettling values, contri- 
buted not a little to the overwhelming disaster of the times. Whether the tariff reform 
.advocated bv Cleveland and the Democratic party was or was not a thing wise to be under- 
taken, certain it is that values were, for the time, ruinously affected by the acts of the 
current Congress. 

This work, coming on top of the demonetization of silver, completed the sorrow of the 
American people. As for tlie tariff legislation, that took form in a bill prepared by 




WILLIAM L. WIL.SON. 



552 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



Representative William 
of free trade and not a 
nevertheless included as 



L^. 




L. Wilson, of West ^'irginia, which, though not a measure 
measure founded on the principle of a tariff for revenue only, 

much of these two principles as tlie expediency of the hour 
would bear. The Wilson Bill was passed by 
the House of Representatives, and transmitted 
to the Senate. In that body the monopolies 
had so great influence that a measure pro- 
posed by Senator Gorman, including a tariff on 
coal and iron and a differential duty on refined 
sugar, was substituted for the Wilson Bill, and 
forced upon the reluctant House. Such was the 
odium created by this measure, which was adopted 
on the 13th of August, that the elections following 

against the Dem- 



liard after went overwhelmingly 
ocrats. 




SENATOR A. P. GORMAK. 



INDUSTRIAL AND BUSINESS DEPRESSION. 

While this legislative work was in progress, the 
industrial depression and discontent and suffering of 
the people led to the most alarming consequences. 
Strikes and lockouts became the order of the 
day. Business failures resounded through the land 
like the 
fall i n g 
of a for- 
est. Com- 
merce virtually ceased. Presently, in the latter part 
of April, 1894, a hundred and thirty thousand 
miners stopped work and were joined immediately 
afterward by fully twenty-five thousand otho^rs. 
Nearly all the coke plants in Western Pennsylvania 
were closed. JNIeanwhilc, the discontented and half- 
starved people began to show their desires and 
passions in a way never hitherto displayed in the 
United States. 

Those who had been thrown out of employ- 
ment began to combine, without knowing why, 
into what was known as the Army of the Com- 
monweal. One such army, under the leadership 
of J. S. Coxey, of Massillon, Ohio, marched on 
W^a.shington City, to demand employment from 
the national government. Another band came 
on from the far West, under the leadership of their 

,,,,,_, , ,, ., ,, _ ., GU.viCRAI, J. S. COXEV. 

so-called " General ' kelle>-. Railway cars were 

appropriated here and there for transportation. Collisions occurred between divisions 
of the army and various bodies of troops. On the 30th of May these men of the Com- 
monweal made a demonstration on the steps of the Capitol at Washington. The 




EPOCH OF WAR. AND GREATNESS. 



553 



authorities of the District, on the alert for some excuse, found the leaders of the army on the 
Capitol grounds in a place forbidden. Coxey and Carl Browne were arrested for trespassing, 
and were convicted and imprisoned. During the whole summer of 1894 these strange move- 
ments of the under men of the United States continued. 

Meanwhile, riots broke out in the coke regions near Uniontown, Pennsylvania. On 
the 4th of April, 1894, six persons were killed there. Serious disturbances among the 
miners occurred in Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, Illinois and Kansas. In many places the State 
militia was called out, and petty fights occurred. At Cripple Creek, in Colorado, a great 
riot took place, and prominent citizens were seized and held for some time as hostages. 

Hard after this came a prodigious scandal in the politics of New York City. There a 
vile system had been established under the auspices 
of the Tammany Society. There came at length 
a revolt of public sentiment. Rev. Charles H. 
Parkhurst, a noted preacher of the metropolis, led 
a public crusade against the iniquitous govern- 
ment of the city. It transpired that the saloons 
and disorderly houses of New York had entered 
into corrupt combination with the police officials, 
paying them for the privilege of carrying on their 
vicious and unlawful pursuits without disturb- 
ance. Bribery and blackmail had spread through 
all the purlieus of the city. The Senate of New 
York appointed a committee to investigate the 
shocking condition of the metropolis, and placed 
at the head Senator Lexow, whose name passed into 
the history of the day. The revelations made by the 
committee were astounding. A municipal election 
came on, and the Tammany Society was routed. 
A People's ticket was successful against the most 
powerful political organization in America, backed 
as it was by an average majority of sixty thousand 
votes. For the time at least a better state of affairs 
was brought about in the leading American city. 

The fall elections of 1894 went overwhelmingly against the Democratic party. It 
were hard to say whether the triumph of that party only two years previously or its disaster 
at the middle of the Cleveland administration was greater. As a matter of fact, the election 
of Cleveland in 1S92 was not a great endorsement of the Democratic party. Neither was 
the overthrow of that party, two years afterwards, a popular endorsement of the Republican 
party. Both of these great elections were in the nature of rebukes administered by dis- 
satisfied and ultimately independent people, first to one party, and then to another, in 
proportion as each was seen to be virtually in league with oppressive monopolies and other 
baleful influences and conditions in American politics, and ag^ainst the common people. 




REV. CHARLBS H. PARKHURST. 



THE HAWAIIAN COMPLICATIONS. 

The beginning of the second administration of Cleveland was troubled with a complica- 
tion relative to Hawaii. During the recent Republican ascendency in the government, an 
American party had appeared among the Hawaiians favoring the abolition of the native 



554 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 




fy...,--'** 






monarchy, the substitution of a republic therefor and the ultimate annexation of the islands 
to the United States. This polic)- had the support of the Administration of Harrison. A 
Hawaiian insurrection broke out, and Queen Liliuokalani was dethroned. A treaty of 
annexation was prepared, and the movement for joining the islands to the United States 
was under full way when Cleveland came again into the Presidency. His policy differed 
from that of his predecessor. He sent his agent Blount to Hawaii, to report on the political 
conditions there present. The request was made that the projjosed treaty of annexation 
be returned to the State Department at Washington. On the 14th of April, 1893, came 
the report of Blount, which was so adverse to the policy hitherto pursued by our govern- 
ment that the President ordered a protectorate of the United States which had been 
established over Ha- 
waii to be with- 
drawn. On the 27th 
of i\Iay, the Amer- 
ican flag which 
had been run up 
o\-er the public 
buildings at Hono- 
lulu and had briefly 
floated there was 
pulled down, and 
the affairs of the 
island were remand- 
ed to native author- 
ity. For a time it 
appeared that the 
queen would be re- 
.stored ; but the Re- 
publican part}' had 
now become so 
strong that the in- 
sular monarchy 
could not be set up 
again. A republic 
-was presently establislied 1))- the Hawaiians, led by the Americans resident in the islands, 
and Mr. Dole, an American, was elected president. 

To this period belongs also the important arbitration between the United States and 
Great Britain relative to the seal fisheries in Behring Sea. In that remote water a serious 
controversy had arisen between the vessels of the two nations, and acts of violence had 
taken place, The question was whether the jurisdiction of the United States, with the 
consequent exclusive right of American sealers to ply their vocation, extended out from 
the .seal islands .seaward to the deep waters of Behring Sea. Our government was dis- 
posed to hold that the doctrine of viarc c/aitsiiiii or the "shut-up .sea" held in this case, 
while Great Britain — turning from her ancient policy of the shut sea to the doctrine of 
})iair Ubni»i or " free sea " — now espoused the principle which the United States had pre- 
viously maintained. The ravages of the .ships of both nations in the deep waters had 
already greatly reduced the seal product in Behring Sea, and threatened the extinction of 



TU1-: kOVAI. I'AI.ACH, HAWAII. 




EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 



555 



the valuable industn-. On the 29th of February, 1892, a treaty had been signed at 
Washington between tlie two powers, agreeing to refer the controversy to an international 
board of arbitration. The court thus provided convened on the 23d of March, at Paris, and 
it was agreed that a temporary understanding, called modus vivciidi, regulating the conduct 
■of the two nations, should be extended to the 31st of October, 1893. The final result was 
a decision against the United States on the main question at issue ; namely, that our govern- 
ment could not extend its authority to the open waters of the Behring Sea. An award 
of damages to the extent of $425,000 was also made against the United States. 




HAWAIIAN FEAST. 



The latter part of the year 1894 was still further troubled with alarming difficulties 
between the employes and the proprietors of the great manufacturing establishments of the 
■country. On the 1 7th of July ten thousand workmen in the great textile manufactories 
of New Bedford, Mass., struck against a reduction of wages, and soon afterward no fewer 
than twenty -three thousand operatives at Fall River were locked out by the managers. 
Then came the strike of the journeyman tailors of New York City, which was long con- 
tinued, and disastrous alike to employers and employes. In the latter part of January, 
1895, a dreadful strike occurred of the employes of the electrical street car companies of 
Brooklyn. In this movement about twenty-five thousand men were involved. Notwith- 
standing the well-known fact that the principle for which the workmen contended was just, 



556 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



the public necessity of having the cars operated and tlie combined powers of organization 
and wealth calling upon the authorities, municipal and militar}', of the city to put down 
the strikers and rioters prevailed, and the strike was suppressed — not, however, imtil several 

serious conflicts involving the loss of life and great 
distress to the people had occurred. 

THE STRIKES OF 1894. 

In that epoch which we are now considering, 
one event of the most portentous character occurred. 
The coal strike practically ended on the iSth of 
June, 1894. The losses entailed upon the coal-mine 
owners and the operatives were estimated at twenty 
millions of dollars. On the 26th of June, just after- 
ward, the American Railway Union, a powerful 
organization of operatives, declared a boycott against 
the Pullman Palace Car Company, having its offices 
and manufacturing establishments at the town of 
Pullman, near Chicago. 

This boycott was proclaimed as an act of sym- 
pathy with the striking employes of the Pullman 
Company. The Company refused to sul^mit 
to arbi- 
tra t ion. 
Notwith- 
standing 
the enor- 
mous profits of the corporation regularly declared on 
a capital which had been watered until it was more 
than twelve times as great as at first, the wages of the 
employes had been time and again reduced, and 
other oppressive measures had been taken until the 
operatives were brought to the verge of despera- 
tion. When they struck against further oppression, 
the Railway Union declared the boycott against 
the cars, and immediately a tremendous array of 
power was exhibited on both sides of the contro- 
versy. A great blockade of railway freight and 
of passenger trains on the roads centering in Chicago 
was established. The mails in some cases were 
delayed. The strike spread as far as San Fran- 
cisco, and in two days traffic was practically sus- 
pended. The organic forces of .society now rallied. 
On the 2d of July, the United vStates courts in 
Chicago issued sweeping injunctions against the 
strikers. Regular troops under command of General Miles were sent to the scene to suppress 
rioting. On the 6th of July a great riot occurred ; many were killed, and two hundred 
and twenty-five cars were burned. 




DR. JAMES M'COSH. 




GENERAL HENRY W. SI.OCUM. 



EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS. 



557 



Eugene V. Debs, president of the American Railwaj' Union, and his fellow officers 
were arrested. President Cleveland issued a proclamation on tlie 8th of July, and ordered 
a division of the standing army to suppress the riots in California. Gradually the strikers 
in Chicago were put down, and by the 15th of the month the movement was suppressed. 
Soon afterward a commission, headed by the Honorable Carroll D. Wright, was appointed 
by the President of the United States to investigate the origin, character and results of the 
strike. By this commission the true nature of the event was discovered and established. 
The report showed that the whole blame for the disaster rested upon the Pullman Company, 
and that the strikers, except in a very few desultory instances, hrd not been guilty of either 
breaking the law or doing other violence to society. In course of a few months. Debs and 
his fellow-officers of the American Railway Union were brought to trial for an alleged 
contempt of court, in not answering a summons 
thereof; for this they were convicted and sent to 
prison. 

THE ILLUSTRIOUS DEAD. 

During the Administration of Harrison and 
the second Administration of Cleveland, a number 
of prominent Americans passed away by death. 
On the i6th of November, 1893, ex-President James 
McCosh, of Princeton College, died, at the age of 
eighty-three. On the i3tli of the following April, 
David Dudley Field, of New York, one of the most 
distinguished jurists of the United States, expired, 
at the advanced aee of eig-htv-nine. On the follow- 
ing day Senator Zebulon B. Vance, of North Caro- 
lina, passed away, aged sixty-four ; and at nearly 
the same hour General Henr}- W. Slocum, who had 
reached his sixty-seventh year, died in Brooklyn. 
On the 7tli of June, Dr. William Dwiglit Whitney, 
the greatest philologist of our coimtry, passed 
away, at the age of sixty-seven. 

On the 20th of February, 1895, the distin- 
o-uished Frederick Dousrlass died at his home in 
Washington. He had long been recognized as the leading African of the world. Since the 
days of Toussaint I'Ouverture, no man of black visage in any part of the world had 
been the peer of Frederick Douglass. At the time of his death he had entered his seventy- 
ninth year. It would appear that although white blood mingled with the Nigritian 
in his veins he was nevertheless a true African. His attainments were remarkable. His 
patriotism was as conspicuous as his humanity. Born a sla\-e, he had lived to become one 
of the greatest leaders of his epoch. Having on his shoulders the cruel marks of the driver's 
lash, he had in his brain, none the less, the visions of the dawn and in his soul all the 
music of the sone-l^irds of freedom. 




FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 



THE COMPLETED STORV. 

The History of Our Country has thus been recited from its discovery by the adven- 
turers at the close of the fifteenth century down to the present time. The story is complete I 
The four centuries of time through which we have passed since the unveiling of the 



h 



55« 



PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



continent have brought lis the experience of the ages, and let ns hope the wisdom and | 
virtues of the greatest nations of the earth. Our Republic has passed through storni\' 
times, but has come at last in full splendor and with uplifted banners to the dawn of the i 
great anniversary which is to commemorate the discovery of the New World. As a united 
Nation, we are already well advanced into the second century of our existence. Peace and 
tranquillity are abroad. Clouds of distrust and war have sunk behind the horizon. Here 
at least the equality of all men in rights and privileges before the law has been written with 
an iron pen in the Constitution of our country. The union of the States has been conse- 
crated anew within our memories by the blood of patriots and the tears of the lowly. Best 
of all, the temple of Freedom reared by our patriot Fathers still stands in undiminished 
glory. The Past has taught its Lesson, the Present has its Duty, and tiii-; 
"Future its Hope. 



r^' 




m 



w ^5 






''^.c.'b'' .'^B^v '-^i.^*' : 



"=>pc,v' ;^Bi^, ^'S'^'^^ 



'*-?.?•*&* ''b, '^CT^**^ '*'<.''*'...•*.&*■ '^^'V?^**A ^^^'''o..*"0^ * 






^- .^^-n*. 






"0 ^°^ '« 






V-"^'*.*^" %*^'^'/ *^^'^?^\/ %*^' 

vV.r.-.V ..*''\;i^./V .Sy:^'>^^ 






« AT V. 









? %^^^' ^^^ %*^-'/ \'i^\^*'^ %'^-*/ *^^'^^ 

Jfe'- V** .-^sM-. \,/ /jgfe*-. **^** .-^ffi-. %„/ .-afe-. V 












■^^6* 






•^^d« o, 






to ^Ofc -^ 







<^ *..f 






^^-^^^ ,. 



^- j.°^*. -jei^; /?5°.«> •.'^!^>' .j''^'^*.. \ 













-♦ 

a9 .1^1.% ^ 



V. •..•• vV* 












v-^^ 















V^>^i^ 




:, '-^^0^ f. 



'bv 




>* ..", 



.^"^ yi 



'bV 



^^*°^.^: 






























/^•.;^'% c°^^JU:>- ./v>:^'V /-^- 










e.7 ^ 















""V'-'^^'\/ %.*^^>*/ ^^^'^^^••y'' %*^''\o' ■"V''^''< 









0° .^^^' >o 









I- "bV^ 









%'^-*/ *^^'^^\/ %*^-'/ *^^'i^\/ %*^-*% 



'; .♦'"^. 
























'^^^'^r^-./ %*^-*/ *^^'^^\/ %*^-*/ V'^^\. 


















'*'V*'^^>^ \;^?^-\/* '^V'^^'V^ \;^^V^ ^^o2^^^\ 






j.\ -^^^ >"^ »*^i^'. "^^ aV .vc%,p^% ''%.^^' :W&'^ %^^^ ^^^k'-y-.f 









o^^^o,. 



<. '..V* .G 



'o. ♦'TTT' A 









>**\.-^^X 






^•. '■^^o'«' o«?=^ia'- ^i> .-'£sm>r.\ ^-(u-cS 














BINOINC ■ <S>^ 






V V ^^ 



';«-o^ 



'bV" 









o_ » 








